PLATO (PLanetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is a mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) which will launch in 2026, with the ambitious goal of discovering a large number of Earth-like exoplanets orbiting around Sun-like stars. To achieve its objectives, PLATO will observe hundreds of thousands of FGK dwarfs and subgiants and M stars. The first observing field has been recently selected and contains about 180 000 targets. The work which is presented in this master thesis is framed in the context of the PLATO mission and in particular in the necessary preliminary analysis of the targets, needed both for the optimization of the mission as well as for the interpretation of the mission results. In particular, in this work I performed a 6-D (positions and velocities in the Milky Way) kinematics investigation of the targets in the PLATO Input Catalogue (PIC), namely the catalogue containing the targets that will be observed. The main aim of this work is to place PIC targets in the context of the Milky Way, so that, when PLATO will start discovering exoplanets, it will be possible to study the relation between planets and the Galactic environment in which they formed. To perform such study, I cross-matched the PIC with catalogues containing the data from other surveys, such as Gaia DR3 and RAVE, in order to extract information about the positions, the proper motions and the metallicity of the targets. Analyzing these data, I was able to classify the targets in terms of the stellar components of our Galaxy: thin disk, thick disk and halo. Furthermore, I showed and briefly discussed the stellar properties of the targets, such as radius, mass and effective temperature, in the context of each stellar component. Finally, I cross-matched the PIC with other relevant catalogues, such as the TESS Objects of Interest catalogue, the VSX catalogue, which lists variable objects, and a recently-created Gaia-based open clusters catalogue in order to identify peculiar targets and evaluate how many and which targets belong to known open clusters.

PLATO (PLanetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is a mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) which will launch in 2026, with the ambitious goal of discovering a large number of Earth-like exoplanets orbiting around Sun-like stars. To achieve its objectives, PLATO will observe hundreds of thousands of FGK dwarfs and subgiants and M stars. The first observing field has been recently selected and contains about 180 000 targets. The work which is presented in this master thesis is framed in the context of the PLATO mission and in particular in the necessary preliminary analysis of the targets, needed both for the optimization of the mission as well as for the interpretation of the mission results. In particular, in this work I performed a 6-D (positions and velocities in the Milky Way) kinematics investigation of the targets in the PLATO Input Catalogue (PIC), namely the catalogue containing the targets that will be observed. The main aim of this work is to place PIC targets in the context of the Milky Way, so that, when PLATO will start discovering exoplanets, it will be possible to study the relation between planets and the Galactic environment in which they formed. To perform such study, I cross-matched the PIC with catalogues containing the data from other surveys, such as Gaia DR3 and RAVE, in order to extract information about the positions, the proper motions and the metallicity of the targets. Analyzing these data, I was able to classify the targets in terms of the stellar components of our Galaxy: thin disk, thick disk and halo. Furthermore, I showed and briefly discussed the stellar properties of the targets, such as radius, mass and effective temperature, in the context of each stellar component. Finally, I cross-matched the PIC with other relevant catalogues, such as the TESS Objects of Interest catalogue, the VSX catalogue, which lists variable objects, and a recently-created Gaia-based open clusters catalogue in order to identify peculiar targets and evaluate how many and which targets belong to known open clusters.

Kinematics characterization of targets in the PLATO Input Catalogue

CONSOLINI, GABRIEL
2023/2024

Abstract

PLATO (PLanetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is a mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) which will launch in 2026, with the ambitious goal of discovering a large number of Earth-like exoplanets orbiting around Sun-like stars. To achieve its objectives, PLATO will observe hundreds of thousands of FGK dwarfs and subgiants and M stars. The first observing field has been recently selected and contains about 180 000 targets. The work which is presented in this master thesis is framed in the context of the PLATO mission and in particular in the necessary preliminary analysis of the targets, needed both for the optimization of the mission as well as for the interpretation of the mission results. In particular, in this work I performed a 6-D (positions and velocities in the Milky Way) kinematics investigation of the targets in the PLATO Input Catalogue (PIC), namely the catalogue containing the targets that will be observed. The main aim of this work is to place PIC targets in the context of the Milky Way, so that, when PLATO will start discovering exoplanets, it will be possible to study the relation between planets and the Galactic environment in which they formed. To perform such study, I cross-matched the PIC with catalogues containing the data from other surveys, such as Gaia DR3 and RAVE, in order to extract information about the positions, the proper motions and the metallicity of the targets. Analyzing these data, I was able to classify the targets in terms of the stellar components of our Galaxy: thin disk, thick disk and halo. Furthermore, I showed and briefly discussed the stellar properties of the targets, such as radius, mass and effective temperature, in the context of each stellar component. Finally, I cross-matched the PIC with other relevant catalogues, such as the TESS Objects of Interest catalogue, the VSX catalogue, which lists variable objects, and a recently-created Gaia-based open clusters catalogue in order to identify peculiar targets and evaluate how many and which targets belong to known open clusters.
2023
Kinematics characterization of targets in the PLATO Input Catalogue
PLATO (PLanetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is a mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) which will launch in 2026, with the ambitious goal of discovering a large number of Earth-like exoplanets orbiting around Sun-like stars. To achieve its objectives, PLATO will observe hundreds of thousands of FGK dwarfs and subgiants and M stars. The first observing field has been recently selected and contains about 180 000 targets. The work which is presented in this master thesis is framed in the context of the PLATO mission and in particular in the necessary preliminary analysis of the targets, needed both for the optimization of the mission as well as for the interpretation of the mission results. In particular, in this work I performed a 6-D (positions and velocities in the Milky Way) kinematics investigation of the targets in the PLATO Input Catalogue (PIC), namely the catalogue containing the targets that will be observed. The main aim of this work is to place PIC targets in the context of the Milky Way, so that, when PLATO will start discovering exoplanets, it will be possible to study the relation between planets and the Galactic environment in which they formed. To perform such study, I cross-matched the PIC with catalogues containing the data from other surveys, such as Gaia DR3 and RAVE, in order to extract information about the positions, the proper motions and the metallicity of the targets. Analyzing these data, I was able to classify the targets in terms of the stellar components of our Galaxy: thin disk, thick disk and halo. Furthermore, I showed and briefly discussed the stellar properties of the targets, such as radius, mass and effective temperature, in the context of each stellar component. Finally, I cross-matched the PIC with other relevant catalogues, such as the TESS Objects of Interest catalogue, the VSX catalogue, which lists variable objects, and a recently-created Gaia-based open clusters catalogue in order to identify peculiar targets and evaluate how many and which targets belong to known open clusters.
PLATO
Gaia
Kinematics
Milky Way
Exoplanets
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12608/71366