Swedish Participation in Ariel

We propose continued Swedish participation in the ESA Ariel mission by maintaining the Ariel Postdoctoral Fellowship program that has been initiated with previous SNSA support (established in 2021).

This program works with national and international partners, i.e., within the Ariel Consortium, to jointly fund postdoctoral fellowship positions in support of the Ariel mission.

To date, four postdoctoral fellows have been recruited, including with partnerships with Univ. of Vienna, Austria and Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain.

Three of these postdocs are currently in their fellowship positions, while the other has received and started a faculty position.

The current and former postdocs are making important contributions to Ariel Consortium activities, including the on-going Ariel Dry Run that is designed to carry-out an end-to-end analysis of Ariel science operations.

Particular critical work tasks are in areas related to calibration studies, data reduction pipeline software development, target star characterisation, phase curve retrieval simulations, and predictions for Ariel observations based on modeling of planet formation and evolution of exoplanet atmospheres.

The postdocs are also engaged in supervision of students in research projects related to the Ariel mission.

This proposal seeks to maintain a stable level of support for the Ariel Postdoctoral Fellowship program for the next 4-year period from mid-2025 to mid-2029, which is close to the expected launch date of the mission in 2029.

To build on the success of the current program, it is important for planning purposes to have information about the funding status of the next phase by the end of 2023.

Maintenance of the Ariel Postdoctoral Fellowship program will give high visibility to Sweden within the Ariel Consortium and has great potential to attract European-level funding to Sweden to support Ariel mission preparation and science activities.