The Canadian Ariel Science Team:
The Canadian Space Agency announced in 2023 that it was joining Ariel, the European Space Agency's M4 mission. Ariel is scheduled to launch in 2031 to start a 4 year nominal mission during which it will obtain optical/IR photometry and medium-resolution IR spectra of a thousand exoplanets to study their atmospheres. For more information about Ariel, refer to the Red Book, the special Ariel issue of Experimental Astronomy, or the Ariel Link Tree.

Under an agreement with ESA, the CSA will supply cryo-harnesses in exchange for recruiting 12 new Canadian scientists to the Ariel Consortium. Consortium members participate in the target selection and design of experiments for the Ariel mission. The Canadian contingent of the Ariel Consortium is known as the Canadian Ariel Science Team (CAST). If you are a researcher based in Canada interested in joining the CAST, please contact the Canadian Co-PI at nicolas.cowan@mcgill.ca.

Current CAST Members and their primary interests are listed below (Members of the Ariel Consortium have contributed to Ariel science for at least the past two years; the rest of the CAST are Supporting Members):
Michael Balogh (2025-): planet formation
Charles-Édouard Boukaré (2026-): planetary interiors
Ryan Cloutier (2023-): host stars, RV, target selection
Nicolas Cowan (2018-): target selection, phase curves
Lisa Dang (2023-): phase curves
Viktor Khalack (2024-): variable stars
Michelle Kunimoto (2023-): target selection
Chris Mann (2024-): target selection
Stan Metchev (2025-): transit photometry, brown dwarfs
Hilding Neilson (2025-): limb darkening
Michael Radica (2025-): atmospheric characterization
Locke Spencer (2023-): thermal testing
Diana Valencia (2018-): interior modeling

CAST Trainees:
Nickolas Fortier (MSc at University of Lethbridge w/Spencer)
Rohan Kumar (MSc at McMaster University w/Cloutier)
Samantha Lambier (PhD at Western University w/Metchev)
Élise Leclerc (MSc at McGill University w/Cowan)
Wasi Naqvi (MSc at McGill University w/Cowan)

CAST Alumni:
Roman Akhmetshyn (2025-2026)
Björn Benneke (2023-2024)
Lina D'Aoust (2024--2026)
Eve Lee (2023-2024)

CAST Publications (CAST-led papers are bolded):

• Beyond Five Scale Heights: Composition- and Cloud-dependent Ariel Tier-2 Requirements for sub-Neptunes
• A Pair of Warm Saturn-mass Planets near the 2:1 Mean Motion Resonance around TOI-3850
• How Late Solid Enrichment Shapes Atmospheric Abundances in Giant Planets
• HERMES: HiERarchical Modelling for Exoplanet Science
• Assessing Ariel's capabilities to observe free-floating brown dwarfs
• On the Information Content of Ariel Transmission Spectra: Reassessing the Tier System
• Balancing Variety and Sample Size: Optimal Parameter Sampling for Ariel Target Selection
• The Albedo Problem and Cloud Cover on Hot Jupiters
• On the synergetic use of Ariel and JWST for exoplanet atmospheric science
• Testing the Origin of Hot Jupiters with Atmospheric Surveys
• Maximizing Ariel's Survey Leverage for Population-Level Studies of Exoplanets
• A Comprehensive Analysis of Spitzer 4.5 micron Phase Curves of Hot Jupiters
• A survey of exoplanet phase curves with Ariel
• Constraining Exoplanet Metallicities and Aerosols with the Contribution to ARIEL Spectroscopy of Exoplanets (CASE)
• A Framework for Prioritizing the TESS Planetary Candidates Most Amenable to Atmospheric Characterization

and some old papers that helped motivate Ariel in the first place:

• Characterizing Transiting Planet Atmospheres through 2025
• The Statistics of Albedo and Heat Recirculation on Hot Exoplanets