Navigating retrieval degeneracies in JWST transmission spectra of hot Jupiters

[KevinBR]

I'm an astronomy graduate student, and my thesis involves analyzing transmission spectroscopy data from JWST to characterize the atmospheres of several hot Jupiters. I'm currently trying to disentangle the spectral signatures of different molecules and clouds in the data, and I'm overwhelmed by the complexity of the atmospheric retrieval models and the degeneracies between parameters like temperature, metallicity, and cloud opacity. For researchers working in this area, what are the current best practices and software tools for atmospheric retrieval, and how do you assess the statistical significance of a detected molecule when the models are so computationally expensive to run? I'm also curious about how the field is preparing to handle data from smaller, rocky exoplanets and what new spectroscopic features we should be prioritizing in our observations.