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Single Mode, Extreme Precision Doppler Spectrographs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2014

Christian Schwab
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, Yale University, New Haven, USA email: [email protected]
Sergio G. Leon-Saval
Affiliation:
Institute of Photonics & Optical Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia email: [email protected], email: [email protected], email: [email protected]
Christopher H. Betters
Affiliation:
Institute of Photonics & Optical Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia email: [email protected], email: [email protected], email: [email protected]
Joss Bland-Hawthorn
Affiliation:
Institute of Photonics & Optical Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia email: [email protected], email: [email protected], email: [email protected]
Suvrath Mahadevan
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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The ‘holy grail’ of exoplanet research today is the detection of an earth-like planet: a rocky planet in the habitable zone around a main-sequence star. Extremely precise Doppler spectroscopy is an indispensable tool to find and characterize earth-like planets; however, to find these planets around solar-type stars, we need nearly one order of magnitude better radial velocity (RV) precision than the best current spectrographs provide. Recent developments in astrophotonics (Bland-Hawthorn & Horton 2006, Bland-Hawthorn et al. 2010) and adaptive optics (AO) enable single mode fiber (SMF) fed, high resolution spectrographs, which can realize the next step in precision. SMF feeds have intrinsic advantages over multimode fiber or slit coupled spectrographs: The intensity distribution at the fiber exit is extremely stable, and as a result the line spread function of a well-designed spectrograph is fully decoupled from input coupling conditions, like guiding or seeing variations (Ihle et al. 2010). Modal noise, a limiting factor in current multimode fiber fed instruments (Baudrand & Walker 2001), can be eliminated by proper design, and the diffraction limited input to the spectrograph allows for very compact instrument designs, which provide excellent optomechanical stability. A SMF is the ideal interface for new, very precise wavelength calibrators, like laser frequency combs (Steinmetz et al. 2008, Osterman et al. 2012), or SMF based Fabry-Perot Etalons (Halverson et al. 2013). At near infrared wavelengths, these technologies are ready to be implemented in on-sky instruments, or already in use. We discuss a novel concept for such a spectrograph.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2014 

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