Defining and cataloging exoplanets: The exoplanet.eu database

TL;DR

This paper introduces an online database for exoplanets, detailing criteria for inclusion, confidence levels, and providing tools for data analysis, aiming to standardize and facilitate the study of exoplanetary systems.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive, regularly updated database for exoplanets with criteria for inclusion and confidence levels, along with analysis tools and future development plans.

Findings

Database includes confirmed and unconfirmed exoplanet candidates.

Provides online tools like histograms and cross-correlations.

Discusses criteria and confidence levels for catalog inclusion.

Abstract

We describe an online database for extra-solar planetary-mass candidates, updated regularly as new data are available. We first discuss criteria for the inclusion of objects in the catalog: "definition" of a planet and several aspects of the confidence level of planet candidates. {\bf We are led to point out the conflict between sharpness of belonging or not to a catalogue and fuzziness of the confidence level.} We then describe the different tables of extra-solar planetary systems, including unconfirmed candidates (which will ultimately be confirmed, or not, by direct imaging). It also provides online tools: histogrammes of planet and host star data, cross-correlations between these parameters and some VO services. Future evolutions of the database are presented.