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

这一研究项目将集中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、地球的独特性以及银河系中其他生命的可能性的问题推动的。一种寻找其他恒星周围行星的方法涉及到寻找恒星围绕其旋转时发出的光的光谱(颜色)的周期性变化。这些颜色变化太小了，人眼无法辨别；检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，就像一把超精密的光波尺子，并与名为宜居地带行星探测器的望远镜上的仪器一起使用。这些工具加在一起，将测量发现系外行星所需的星光颜色的微小变化。该项目将把2005年和2019年诺贝尔物理学奖的进展应用到发现行星的目标上，从而推动技术的极限。这一跨学科和协作研究项目旨在推动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。这包括采用新的激光频率梳模式，并利用这种方法将近红外径向速度谱的精度提高到1米/S以下。仪器总体精度的提高反过来将为解决其他阻碍精确径向速度的障碍开辟道路，例如恒星活动和大地污染。这项工作的结果将解决欠发达的近红外中的此类挑战，并将提供发现较冷的M-矮星周围的宜居带行星所需的工具。激光频率梳在实现探测器的原位表征和精确的径向速度方面的潜力是巨大的和广泛的。这项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，该功能将使技术超越静态的“尖桩栅栏”校准器，发展到具有动态可调频率和幅度的用户定义的梳子，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。这些成果将显著增强现有望远镜和设施的能力，还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智力优势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.