Collaborative Research: An Agile Electro-Optic Frequency Comb for Precision Near-Infrared Radial Velocity Spectroscopy with the Habitable Zone Planet Finder

该研究项目将专注于改进寻找和研究附近恒星周围行星的工具，这些行星被称为系外行星。这样的搜索是由关于起源，地球的独特性和银河系中其他生命的潜力的问题驱动的。一种寻找围绕其他恒星运行的行星的方法是，当行星围绕一颗星星运行时，观察恒星发出的光的光谱（颜色）的周期性变化。这些颜色变化太小，人眼无法识别;探测它们需要特殊的工具。为此，将建造一种先进的激光频率梳，就像光波的超精确标尺，并与名为“可居住区行星”的望远镜上的仪器一起使用。这些工具将一起测量发现系外行星所需的星光颜色的微小变化。该项目将推动技术的极限，因为它将2005年和2019年诺贝尔物理学奖的进步应用于寻找行星的目标。这个跨学科的合作研究项目旨在推进广泛的光子和天文仪器工具，这些工具对系外行星科学至关重要。这包括引入激光频率梳的新模式，并将近红外径向速度光谱的精度推到1 m/s以下。仪器整体精度的提高反过来又为解决其他阻碍精确径向速度的障碍开辟了道路，如恒星活动和大地污染。这项工作的结果将解决开发较少的NIR中的这些挑战，并将提供在较冷的M矮星周围发现适居带行星所需的工具。 激光频率梳的潜力，使原位检测器的特性和精确的径向速度是巨大的和广泛的。拟议的合作研究汇集了天文学家，仪器制造商和激光物理学家，以展示激光频率梳的新功能，该功能将使该技术超越静态“尖桩栅栏”校准器，成为用户定义的具有动态可调频率和振幅的梳，这将使研究跨天文学科使用的HxRG红外探测器阵列的特性成为可能。这些成果将大大提高现有望远镜和设施的能力，并将展示未来一代精密RV光谱仪和其他天文仪器的技术。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research project will focus on improving tools for finding and studying planets around nearby stars, referred to as exoplanets. Such a search is driven by questions about origins, the uniqueness of Earth, and the potential for other life in the galaxy. A method to find planets around other stars involves looking for periodic changes in the spectrum (color) of the light emitted by a star as the planet circles it. These color changes are far too small to be discerned by a human eye; detecting them requires special tools. For this purpose, an advanced laser frequency comb, which is like an ultra-precise ruler for light waves, will be built and used with an instrument on a telescope called the Habitable Zone Planet Finder. Together, these tools will measure the very small changes in the color of starlight needed to discover exoplanets. This project will push the limits of technology as it applies advances from the 2005 and 2019 Nobel Prizes in Physics to the goal of finding planets. This cross-disciplinary and collaborative research project looks to advance a broad range of photonic and astronomical instrumentation tools that are critical for exoplanet science. This includes the introduction of new modalities for laser frequency combs, and there use to push the precision of radial velocity spectroscopy in the near-infrared to below 1 m/s. Improved overall instrument precision will in turn open avenues to address other barriers to precise radial velocities, such as stellar activity and telluric contamination. The result of this work will address such challenges in the much-less-developed NIR and will provide the tools required to discover habitable zone planets around cooler M-dwarfs. The potential of laser frequency combs for enabling in-situ detector characterization and precise radial velocities is substantial and wide-ranging. The proposed collaborative research brings together astronomers, instrument builders, and laser physicists to demonstrate new functionality for a laser frequency comb that will advance the technology beyond a static ‘picket fence’ calibrator to a user-defined comb with dynamically-tunable frequencies and amplitudes that will enable study of the properties of the HxRG infrared detector arrays that are used across astronomical disciplines. These gains will significantly enhance the capabilities of an existing telescope and facility, and will also demonstrate technology for the future generation of precision RV spectrometers and other astronomical instruments.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.