The all-sky PLATO input catalogue^⋆

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia “Galileo Galilei”, Universitá di Padova, Vicolo dell’Osservatorio 3, Padova 35122, Italy
e-mail: marco.montalto@unipd.it
² Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica – Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Vicolo dell’Osservatorio 5, 35122 Padova, Italy
³ Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica – Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Via Frascati 33, 00078 Monte Porzio Catone, Roma, Italy
⁴ Space Science Data Center – ASI, Via del Politecnico snc, 00133 Roma, Italy
⁵ Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica – Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo, P.zza del Parlamento 1, 90134 Palermo, Italy
⁶ ETH Zürich, Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Wolfgang-Pauli-Str. 27, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland
⁷ Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Institut für Optische Sensorsysteme, Rutherfordstraße 2, 12489 Berlin-Adlershof, Germany
⁸ Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Institut für Planetenforschung, Rutherfordstraße 2, 12489 Berlin-Adlershof, Germany
⁹ LESIA, CNRS UMR 8109, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Université Denis Diderot, Observatoire de Paris, 92195 Meudon, France
¹⁰ European Space Agency (ESA), European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), Keplerlaan 1, 2201 AZ Noordwijk, The Netherlands
¹¹ Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Catania, Via S. Sofia 78, 95123 Catania, Italy
¹² Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, CNES, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, Technopôle de Marseille-Etoile, 38, rue Frédéric Joliot-Curie, 13388 Marseille cedex 13, France
¹³ Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA), Depto. de Astrofísica, Madrid, Spain
¹⁴ Institute of Astronomy, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
¹⁵ Department of Astrophysics, IMAPP, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
¹⁶ Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Koenigstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
¹⁷ Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Justus-von-Liebig-Weg 3, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
¹⁸ Institut für Astrophysik, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
¹⁹ Center for Space Science, NYUAD Institute, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE
²⁰ Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
²¹ Centre for Exoplanets and Habitability, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
²² Zentrum für Astronomie und Astrophysik, TU Berlin, Hardenbergstraße 36, 10623 Berlin, Germany
²³ Observatoire de Genève, Université de Genève, Chemin des maillettes 51, 1290 Sauverny, Switzerland
²⁴ Armagh Observatory & Planetarium, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, UK

Received: 3 March 2021
Accepted: 16 May 2021

Abstract

Context. The ESA PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) mission will search for terrestrial planets in the habitable zone of solar-type stars. Because of telemetry limitations, PLATO targets need to be pre-selected.

Aims. In this paper, we present an all sky catalogue that will be fundamental to selecting the best PLATO fields and the most promising target stars, deriving their basic parameters, analysing the instrumental performances, and then planing and optimising follow-up observations. This catalogue also represents a valuable resource for the general definition of stellar samples optimised for the search of transiting planets.

Methods. We used Gaia Data Release 2 astrometry and photometry and 3D maps of the local interstellar medium to isolate FGK (V ≤ 13) and M (V ≤ 16) dwarfs and subgiant stars.

Results. We present the first public release of the all-sky PLATO input catalogue (asPIC1.1) containing a total of 2 675 539 stars including 2 378 177 FGK dwarfs and subgiants and 297 362 M dwarfs. The median distance in our sample is 428 pc for FGK stars and 146 pc for M dwarfs, respectively. We derived the reddening of our targets and developed an algorithm to estimate stellar fundamental parameters (T_eff, radius, mass) from astrometric and photometric measurements.

Conclusions. We show that the overall (internal+external) uncertainties on the stellar parameter determined in the present study are ∼230 K (4%) for the effective temperatures, ∼0.1 R_⊙ (9%) for the stellar radii, and ∼0.1 M_⊙ (11%) for the stellar mass. We release a special target list containing all known planet hosts cross-matched with our catalogue.