RUI: Search for Substellar Companions

马西博士将寻找质量极低的黑暗同伴， 利用宿主星星的反射速度来观测恒星。 他将利用 一种新的测量技术，应显着提高 精确的径向速度，并允许检测恒星 质量低至3千欧质量的伴星，轨道周期 直到观察的持续时间。 他希望进一步 改进分析，使质量更低的同伴 可检测的 天文学中一个长期存在的难题是 亚恒星物体的性质，“恒星”的质量太小， 以支持稳定的核能氢燃烧。 这些物体对 天文学的几个不同的子领域，如：（1） 在我们的银河系的磁盘和 （2）对星星形成的认识 和低恒星质量的原恒星碎裂;和（3） 由亚恒星环绕的低质量恒星质量的测定 伴星，以更好地确定恒星质量函数和 主序星低质量端的双星频率 星辰 虽然有几个有趣的候选人， 目前还没有确认的真正的亚恒星物体 在我们的太阳系之外。 马西博士的目标是利用 改进的观测技术， 质量小至1个木星的亚恒星伴星 马萨诸塞州 该奖项是在NSF研究的赞助下颁发的。 本科院校（RUI）

Dr. Marcy will search for extremely low mass, dark companions to stars by using the reflex velocity of the host star. He will use a new measurement technique which should significantly improve the precision of radial velocities and permit the detection of stellar companions with masses as low 3 Jupiter-masses, for orbital periods up to the duration of the observations. He hopes to further improve the analysis so that companions of even lower mass will be detectable. A long standing difficulty in astronomy as been the determination of the properties of substellar objects, "stars" of too little mass to support stable nuclear hydrogen burning. Such objects bear on several diverse subfields of astronomy, such as: (1) the identification of unseen matter both in the disk of our Galaxy and in halos of other galaxies; (2) the understanding of star formation and protostellar fragmentation at low stellar masses; and (3) the determination of masses of low mass stars orbited by substellar companions to better determine the stellar mass function and the frequency of binary stars at the low mass end of the main sequence of stars. Although there are several interesting candidates, there are currently no confirmed bona fide substellar objects known outside our Solar System. Dr. Marcy's objective is to use an improved observational technique that will permit detection of substellar companions of stars down to masses of about 1 Jupiter- mass. This award is made under the auspices of the NSF Research in Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) program.