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

太阳系外围绕恒星运行的行星的发现吸引了公众的想象力，并点燃了对我们最近的行星邻居的搜索。这个团队将使用利克天文台的自动行星搜寻器（APF）望远镜，在为期三年的类太阳恒星调查中寻找这些“太阳系外”行星。APF-50巡天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目录将提供对岩石行星形成和结构的深入了解，并将为其他团队提供详细的后续测量目标。通过这个项目，PI和他的研究生也将通过HI STAR项目指导夏威夷有才华的高中生参加科学展览项目。APF-50巡天是利用2.4米的APF望远镜，对围绕50颗附近明亮的G和K矮星运行的行星进行深入搜索。这个多普勒行星搜索利用了几乎每晚都能进入APF的高观测节奏。列维光谱仪的大量精确测量使得APF对多普勒信号的灵敏度比之前凯克天文台的Eta-Earth Survey小三倍。新发现的行星将主要是轨道周期为200天或更短的超级地球和亚海王星，可能是轨道周期为几天的地球质量行星。通过对APF行星灵敏度的注入-回收测试，该团队将绘制出小行星的出现情况，作为它们质量和半长轴的函数。

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.