Observability of temperate exoplanets with Ariel

Encrenaz, T., Coustenis, A., Gilli, G., Marcq, E., Molaverdikhani, K., Mugnai, L. V. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9007-9802, Ollivier, M. and Tinetti, G. 2022. Observability of temperate exoplanets with Ariel. Experimental Astronomy 53 (2) , pp. 375-390. 10.1007/s10686-021-09793-x

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Abstract

While the Ariel mission is primarily designed for the study of warm and hot objects, with an equilibrium temperature above 500 K, in this paper we want to explore a larger sample of possible colder targets. We thus investigate the detectability with Ariel of “temperate” exoplanets (with an equilibrium temperature of 400 K). We first consider the case of hydrogen-rich exoplanets (from Jupiters to sub-Neptunes) and we calculate their infrared transmission spectrum for several classes of stars. We consider the Tier 2 mode of Ariel, for which the resolving power (R = 50 for λ < 4 μm and R = 15 for λ > 4 μm) is sufficient to get information about the chemical composition of the objects. Results show that temperate Jupiters and sub-Neptunes around all types of stars from G2 to M8, with revolution periods of a few tens of days and transit durations of a few hours, could be observed with Ariel, up to distances of about 50 pc for Jupiters and 25 pc for sub-Neptunes. In the case of temperate super-Earths, we estimate that they will not be observable in the Ariel Tier 2 mode. In a study of currently available target candidates, we find one sub-Neptune (TOI-178 g) as possibly observable in Ariel’s Tier 2. This on-going study is a follow-up of “Transit spectroscopy of temperate Jupiters with ARIEL: A feasibility study” (Encrenaz et al., Exp. Astr. 46:31–44, 2018).

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Publisher:	Springer
ISSN:	0922-6435
Date of Acceptance:	20 August 2021
Last Modified:	14 Jun 2023 15:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/159705

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