The PLATO field selection process I. Identification and content of the long-pointing fields

Abstract

PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is an ESA M-class satellite planned for launch by end 2026 and dedicated to the wide-field search of transiting planets around bright and nearby stars, with a strong focus on discovering habitable rocky planets hosted by solar-like stars. The choice of the fields to be pointed at is a crucial task since it has a direct impact on the scientific return of the mission. In this paper we describe and discuss the formal requirements and the key scientific prioritization criteria that have to be taken into account in the Long-duration Observation Phase (LOP) field selection, and apply a quantitative metric to guide us in this complex optimization process. We identify two provisional LOP fields, one for each hemisphere (LOPS1, LOPN1), and discuss their properties and stellar content. While additional fine-tuning shall be applied to LOP selection before the definitive choice (to be made two years before launch), we expect their position will not move by more than a few degrees with respect to what is proposed in this paper.

MARVEL: extracting high-precision radial velocities of exoplanet hosts

“…This is exactly inline with the limited magnitude of m V < 11 for the dwarf and subdwarf stars (F5-K7) comprising the core and bright samples (P1 and P2) of the PLATO Input Catalogue (PIC) [7]. The current observational strategy for PLATO is to have two long pointing fields of > 2 years in both hemispheres (the so-called North and South PLATO Field; NPF and SPF, respectively) [8]. Aiming to provide up to 20,000 1 m s −1 measurements per year, MARVEL will thus not only play a key role in PLATO's RV follow-up program [5], but also provide a major proportion of the follow-up observations for bright NPF exoplanet host stars.…”