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

这个研究项目的重点是改进发现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。这样的搜索是由起源、地球的独特性以及银河系中其他生命的可能性等问题驱动的。在其他恒星周围寻找行星的一种方法是，在行星围绕恒星运行时，寻找恒星发出的光谱（颜色）的周期性变化。这些颜色变化太小，人眼无法分辨；探测它们需要特殊的工具。为此，将建造一个先进的激光频率梳，它就像一个超精确的光波尺子，并与望远镜上的仪器一起使用，该仪器被称为宜居带行星发现者。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。该项目将把2005年和2019年诺贝尔物理学奖的进展应用于寻找行星的目标，将突破技术的极限。这个跨学科的合作研究项目旨在推进对系外行星科学至关重要的广泛的光子和天文仪器工具。这包括引入激光频率梳的新模式，并用于将近红外径向速度光谱的精度提高到1米/秒以下。仪器整体精度的提高将反过来为解决精确径向速度的其他障碍开辟道路，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这些挑战，并将提供在较冷的m矮星周围发现宜居带行星所需的工具。激光频率梳在实现原位探测器表征和精确径向速度方面的潜力是巨大而广泛的。拟议的合作研究将天文学家、仪器制造商和激光物理学家聚集在一起，展示激光频率梳的新功能，该功能将把激光频率梳的技术从静态“尖桩栅栏”校定器推进到具有动态可调频率和振幅的用户自定义梳，这将使研究HxRG红外探测器阵列的特性成为可能，这些特性将用于天文学学科。这些成果将显著提高现有望远镜和设施的能力，并将为下一代精密RV光谱仪和其他天文仪器展示技术。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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.