The ARIEL Mission Reference Sample

Abstract

The ARIEL (Atmospheric Remote-sensing Exoplanet Large-survey) mission concept is one of the three M4 mission candidates selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) for a Phase A study, competing for a launch in 2026. ARIEL has been designed to study the physical and chemical properties of a large and diverse sample of exoplanets, and through those understand how planets form and evolve in our galaxy. Here we describe the assumptions made to estimate an optimal sample of exoplanets - including both the already known exoplanets and the "expected" ones yet to be discovered - observable by ARIEL and define a realistic mission scenario. To achieve the mission objectives, the sample should include gaseous and rocky planets with a range of temperatures around stars of different spectral type and metallicity. The current ARIEL design enables the observation of ~1000 planets, covering a broad range of planetary and stellar parameters, during its four year mission lifetime. This nominal list of planets is expected to evolve over the years depending on the new exoplanet discoveries.

36 pages, 33 figures, accepted for publication on Experimental Astronomy, ARIEL special issue

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• An Updated Study of Potential Targets for Ariel
• The contribution of the ARIEL space mission to the study of planetary formation
• Exploring the link between star and planet formation with Ariel
• Ariel stellar characterisation: I -- homogeneous stellar parameters of 187 FGK planet host stars Description and validation of the method
• A new dynamical modeling of the WASP-47 system with CHEOPS observations
• Data availability and requirements relevant for the Ariel space mission and other exoplanet atmosphere applications
• ExoSim: the Exoplanet Observation Simulator
• Detecting General Relativistic Orbital Precession in Transiting Hot Jupiters
• Ariel stellar characterisation II. Chemical abundances of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen for 181 planet-host FGK dwarf stars
• Determination of stellar parameters for Ariel targets: a comparison analysis between different spectroscopic methods
• Exploiting the transit timing capabilities of Ariel
• Effect of clouds on emission spectra for Super Venus