First Planet Confirmation with a Dispersed Fixed-Delay Interferometer

January 2004 • 2004ApJ...600L..79V

Authors • van Eyken, J. C. • Ge, J. • Mahadevan, S. • DeWitt, C.

Abstract • The Exoplanet Tracker is a prototype of a new type of fiber-fed instrument for performing high-precision relative Doppler measurements to detect extrasolar planets. A combination of Michelson interferometer and medium-resolution spectrograph, this low-cost instrument facilitates radial velocity measurements with high throughput over a small bandwidth (~300 Å) and has the potential to be designed for multiobject operation with moderate bandwidths (~1000 Å). We present the first planet detection with this new type of instrument, a successful confirmation of the well-established planetary companion to 51 Peg, showing an rms precision of 11.5 m s^-1 over 5 days. We also show comparison measurements of the radial velocity stable star, η Cas, showing an rms precision of 7.9 m s^-1 over 7 days. These new results are starting to approach the precision levels obtained with traditional radial velocity techniques based on cross-dispersed echelles. We anticipate that this new technique could have an important impact in the search for extrasolar planets.

Links

• SIMBAD http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbo.pl?bibcode=2004ApJ...600L..79V
• PDF https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/381574/pdf
• PREPRINT http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0309825
• SPIRES http://inspirehep.net/search?p=find+j+ASJOA,600,L79
• ELECTR https://doi.org/10.1086%2F381574
• SPIRES http://inspirehep.net/search?p=find+eprint+astro-ph/0309825