Steps Towards Achieving Precision Radial Velocities in the NIR: Developing and Testing Techniques with a 1.75um cutoff H2RG array for a Pathfinder Instrument

在 NIR 中实现精确径向速度的步骤：使用用于 Pathfinder 仪器的 1.75um 截止 H2RG 阵列开发和测试技术

• 批准号: 1006676
• 负责人: Suvrath Mahadevan
• 金额: $ 67.09万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-07-01 至 2014-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1006676&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Steps; Towards; Achieving; Precision; Radial

It has not been long since the only known planets resided in our solar system. Today, world-wide planet-finding efforts have identified over 400 planets orbiting more than 300 stars, and the contrast in properties between many of these systems and our solar system is challenging our understanding of planetary formation and evolution. The Holy Grail of planet-finding has always been to identify objects with near-Earth masses orbiting in the habitable zone of the host star. These planets offer the opportunity to search for evidence of life and thereby develop a better perspective on how it originated and flourished on Earth.The detection of Earth-like planetary masses through the reflex motion of the host star requires either extremely high velocity precision measurements of moderate mass stars - beyond the capabilities of today's best instruments - or the study of low-mass main-sequence (i.e. M spectral type) stars. Because the latter are also very cool, they are faint and the target list is very short for optical studies even with the world's largest telescopes. Dr. Suvrath Mahadevan at the Penn State University plans to upgrade an existing near-infrared laboratory spectrograph that has pioneered some of the techniques used in the above-mentioned discoveries and to apply that spectrograph at the Hobby-Eberly 9-m telescope toward the discovery of Earth-mass planets orbiting low-mass stars. In the near-IR, cool stars are bright and replete with narrow absorption features suitable for radial velocity analysis. Dr. Mahadevan is taking a reasonable and cost-effective approach by employing a sensitivity-cutoff detector array to greatly reduce the cooling requirements of the instrument and Fabry-Perot etalons and gas cells developed for the telecom industry to accomplish accurate wavelength calibration. Soon, this small but experienced group of scientists and students will bring a new instrument to make use of an important spectral region in the study of extrasolar planets. Funding for this work is being provided by NSF's Division of Astronomical Sciences through its Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation program.

我们太阳系中唯一已知的行星存在的时间不长。今天，全球范围内的行星发现工作已经发现了400多颗围绕300多颗恒星运行的行星，其中许多系统与我们的太阳系在性质上的反差正在挑战我们对行星形成和演化的理解。行星发现的圣杯一直是识别在主恒星宜居带轨道上有近地质量的物体。这些行星提供了寻找生命证据的机会，从而对其如何在地球上起源和繁荣提供了更好的视角。通过主恒星的反射运动来探测类似地球的行星质量，需要对中等质量恒星进行极高速度的精确测量--超出当今最好的仪器的能力--或者研究低质量主序(即M谱型)恒星。因为后者也很酷，所以它们很微弱，即使用世界上最大的望远镜进行光学研究，目标清单也很短。宾夕法尼亚州立大学的Suvrath Mahadean博士计划升级现有的近红外实验室光谱仪，该光谱仪开创了上述发现中使用的一些技术，并将霍比-埃伯利9米望远镜的光谱仪应用于发现绕低质量恒星运行的地球质量的行星。在近红外区域，冷星亮度较高，具有较窄的吸收特征，适合径向速度分析。Mahadean博士正在采取一种合理且具有成本效益的方法，通过使用灵敏度截止探测器阵列来极大地降低仪器和为电信行业开发的法布里-珀罗标准具和气体室的冷却要求，以实现准确的波长校准。很快，这个人数不多但经验丰富的科学家和学生小组将带来一种新的仪器，利用太阳系外行星研究中的一个重要光谱区域。这项工作的资金是由NSF的天文科学部通过其先进技术和仪器计划提供的。

项目成果

A Sub-Neptune-sized Planet Transiting the M2.5 Dwarf G 9-40: Validation with the Habitable-zone Planet Finder

• DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/ab5f15
• 发表时间: 2019-12
• 期刊: The Astronomical Journal
• 作者: G. Stefansson;C. Cañas;J. Wisniewski;Paul Robertson;S. Mahadevan;M. Maney;S. Kanodia;C. Beard-C.-Bear

TOI-1728b: The Habitable-zone Planet Finder Confirms a Warm Super-Neptune Orbiting an M-dwarf Host

• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aba0a2
• 发表时间: 2020-06
• 期刊: The Astrophysical Journal
• 作者: S. Kanodia;C. Cañas;G. Stefansson;J. Ninan;L. Hebb;Andrea S. J. Lin;Helen Baran;M. Maney