Collaborative Research: Hunting for Small Planets with the Automated Planet Finder Telescope

太阳系外发现的围绕恒星运行的行星吸引了公众的想象力，并引发了对最近行星邻居的搜索。该团队将使用利克天文台的自动行星探测器(APF)望远镜，对类太阳恒星进行为期三年的调查，寻找这些太阳系外的行星。APF-50调查将发现围绕附近恒星运行的岩石行星，并对它们的质量、轨道形状和大小进行普查。由此产生的附近行星的目录将提供对岩石行星的形成和结构的洞察，并将为其他团队的详细后续测量提供目标。通过这项计划，派和他的研究生还将通过HI STAR计划指导夏威夷有才华的高中生参加科学博览会项目。APF-50调查是利用2.4米的APF望远镜深入搜索围绕附近50颗明亮的G和K矮星运行的行星。这次多普勒行星搜索利用了几乎每晚访问APF所提供的高观测节奏。利维光谱仪的大量精确测量使APF对多普勒信号的敏感度比凯克天文台之前的埃塔-地球调查小三倍。新发现的行星将主要是轨道周期为200天或更短的超地球和亚海王星，也可能是轨道周期为几天的地球质量的行星。利用APF行星灵敏度的注入-恢复测试，该团队将绘制出小行星的出现与它们的质量和半长轴的函数关系。

Discoveries of planets orbiting stars outside our solar system have captivated the public imagination and ignited a search for our nearest planetary neighbors. This team will use the Automated Planet Finder (APF) Telescope at Lick Observatory to hunt for these 'extrasolar' planets in a three-year survey of Sun-like stars. The APF-50 Survey will discover rocky planets orbiting nearby stars and make a census of their masses and orbital shapes and sizes. The resulting catalog of nearby planets will provide insights into the formation and structure of rocky planets and will provide targets for detailed follow-up measurements by other teams. Through this program the PI and his graduate students will also mentor talented high school students in Hawaii on science fair projects through the HI STAR program.The APF-50 Survey is a deep search for planets orbiting fifty nearby, bright G and K dwarf stars using the 2.4-meter APF Telescope. This Doppler planet search exploits the high observational cadence afforded by nearly nightly access to APF. The large number of precise measurements from the Levy Spectrometer make APF sensitive to Doppler signals three times smaller than in the previous Eta-Earth Survey at Keck Observatory. Newly-discovered planets will be mostly super-Earths and sub-Neptunes with orbital periods of 200 days or shorter, and possibly Earth-mass planets with orbital periods of a few days. Using injection-recovery tests of the APF planet sensitivity, the team will map out the occurrence of small planets as a function of their masses and semi-major axes.