MARVEL: A European project to characterise exoplanets

The search for planets around other stars, exoplanets, is reaching new levels as existing and planned space missions by NASA and ESA are finding thousands of new worlds using planet transiting techniques.

The scientific potential for these missions can only be reached when complemented by multi-epoch, ground based high-precision spectroscopy.

Existing spectrographs of suitable stability exist on large telescopes where time is a scarce resource that is not sufficient to meet the demands from existing space missions and even less future ones.We here propose to join a collaboration as partners to build the highly cost-efficient robotic observatory MARVEL (Monitoring Array for Radial VELocities), a facility based on 4 off-the-shelf telescopes feeding a single high-resolution spectrograph, optimised for measuring radial velocities (RV) of bright targets produced by existing and upcoming space missions.

The project is led by KU Leuven, Belgium, who is managing the design, deployment, and operations of the observatory.

The proposed Swedish contribution is the equivalent of one telescope unit with its protecting dome, for about 7% of the total 4 M€ budget. In return, Swedish researchers would gain access to the data and participate in research based on it. The principal contribution by Belgium has already been funded by the Flemish Science Fund (PI H.

Van Winckel), enabling the design phase to move ahead.