Development of Instrumentation for Ultra-Precise Radial Velocity Measurements

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。至少有四种方法可以探测绕恒星运行的行星。到目前为止，最成功的方法是非常仔细地监测恒星的速度。如果速度在它的平均值附近有规律地变化，那么我们很可能是在测量一颗行星在它的轨道上围绕它运行时的反射速度。这是一项非常精确的测量，它依赖于用光谱仪进行的极其精确的速度测量。目前的技术已经发现了300多颗行星，但没有一颗可能支持生命存在；大多数都是像木星一样的气态巨行星。为了到达较小的类地行星，有必要提高测量的精度。史密森天体物理天文台的Andrew Szentgyorgyi博士正在设计一种非常稳定和精确的校准机制，以改善径向速度的测量。Szentgyorgyi博士的波长校准方案使用一种非常快速的脉冲激光，在恒星的光谱上刻下精确已知波长的有规则间隔的校准“梳”线。这项新技术有望提高现有标准的速度测定，足以探测到可居住区内的类地行星。这项工作的资金是由NSF的主要研究仪器项目通过天文科学部提供的。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).There are at least four ways to detect a planet orbiting a star. By far the most successful means to date has been to very carefully monitor the velocity of the star. If the velocity tends to vary regularly about its average value, then it is possible that we are measuring the reflex velocity of the star as a planet moves around it in its orbit. This is a very exacting measurement to make and it relies on extremely accurate velocity measurements made with a spectrograph. Current technology has resulted in over 300 planet detections, but none of these is likely to support life; most of them are gas giants like Jupiter. To reach smaller earth-like planets it is necessary to increase the precision of the measurements. Dr. Andrew Szentgyorgyi of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory is designing a very stable and accurate calibration mechanism to improve these radial velocity measurements. Dr. Szentgyorgyi's wavelength calibration scheme uses a very rapidly pulsed laser to imprint a regularly spaced calibration "comb" of lines of precisely known wavelengths onto the spectrum of the star. This new technique is expected to improve the velocity determination from the current standard enough to detect earth-like planets in the habitable zone. Funding for this work is being provided by NSF's Major Research Instrumentation program through the Division of Astronomical Sciences.