Publications (35)
Characterizing and Mitigating the Impact of Telluric Absorption in Precise Radial Velocities
Sharon Xuesong Wang, Natasha Latouf, Peter Plavchan +7
Precise radial velocity (PRV) surveys are important for the search of Earth analogs around nearby bright stars. Such planets induce a small stellar reflex motion with RV amplitude…
Astrometric Detection of Terrestrial Planets in the Habitable Zones of Nearby Stars with SIM PlanetQuest
Joseph Catanzarite, Michael Shao, Angelle Tanner +2
SIM PlanetQuest (Space Interferometry Mission) is a space-borne Michelson interferometer for precision stellar astrometry, with a nine meter baseline, currently slated for launch i…
HWO Target Stars and Systems: A Prioritized Community List of Potential Stellar Targets for the Habitable Worlds Observatory's ExoEarth Survey
Noah W. Tuchow, Caleb K. Harada, Eric E. Mamajek +9
The HWO Target Stars and Systems 2025 (TSS25) list is a community-developed catalog of potential stellar targets for the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) in its survey to directl…
SIM PlanetQuest Key Project Precursor Observations to Detect Gas Giant Planets Around Young Stars
Angelle Tanner, Charles Beichman, Rachel Akeson +10
We present a review of precursor observing programs for the SIM PlanetQuest Key project devoted to detecting Jupiter mass planets around young stars. In order to ensure that the st…
HST and Spitzer Observations of the HD 207129 Debris Ring
John Krist, Karl Stapelfeldt, Geoffrey Bryden +10
A debris ring around the star HD 207129 (G0V; d = 16.0 pc) has been imaged in scattered visible light with the ACS coronagraph on the Hubble Space Telescope and in thermal emission…
EarthFinder Probe Mission Concept Study: Characterizing nearby stellar exoplanet systems with Earth-mass analogs for future direct imaging
Peter Plavchan, Gautam Vasisht, Chas Beichman +52
EarthFinder is a NASA Astrophysics Probe mission concept selected for study as input to the 2020 Astrophysics National Academies Decadal Survey. The EarthFinder concept is based on…
Stellar Parameters for HD 69830, a Nearby Star with Three Neptune Mass Planets and an Asteroid Belt
Angelle Tanner, Tabetha S. Boyajian, Kaspar von Braun +9
We used the CHARA Array to directly measure the angular diameter of HD 69830, home to three Neptune mass planets and an asteroid belt. Our measurement of 0.674+/-0.014 milli-arcsec…
Precision near-infrared radial velocity instrumentation II: Non-Circular Core Fiber Scrambler
Peter P. Plavchan, Michael Bottom, Peter Gao +18
We have built and commissioned a prototype agitated non-circular core fiber scrambler for precision spectroscopic radial velocity measurements in the near-infrared H band. We have…
A New Standard for Assessing the Performance of High Contrast Imaging Systems
Rebecca Jensen-Clem, Dimitri Mawet, Carlos A. Gomez Gonzalez +8
As planning for the next generation of high contrast imaging instruments (e.g. WFIRST, HabEx, and LUVOIR, TMT-PFI, EELT-EPICS) matures, and second-generation ground-based extreme a…
Retrieval of Precise Radial Velocities from Near-Infrared High Resolution Spectra of Low Mass Stars
Peter Gao, Peter Plavchan, Jonathan Gagné +21
Given that low-mass stars have intrinsically low luminosities at optical wavelengths and a propensity for stellar activity, it is advantageous for radial velocity (RV) surveys of t…
Habitability of Planets Orbiting Cool Stars
Rory Barnes, Victoria S. Meadows, Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman +6
Terrestrial planets are more likely to be detected if they orbit M dwarfs due to the favorable planet/star size and mass ratios. However, M dwarf habitable zones are significantly…
Precise Radial Velocities of Cool Low Mass Stars With iSHELL
Bryson Cale, Peter Plavchan, Danny LeBrun +11
The coolest dwarf stars are intrinsically faint at visible wavelengths and exhibit rotationally modulated stellar activity from spots and plages. It is advantageous to observe thes…
Diving Beneath the Sea of Stellar Activity: Chromatic Radial Velocities of the Young AU Mic Planetary System
Bryson Cale, Michael Reefe, Peter Plavchan +52
We present updated radial-velocity (RV) analyses of the AU Mic system. AU Mic is a young (22 Myr) early M dwarf known to host two transiting planets - days, $R_{b}=…
A High-Precision NIR Survey for RV Variable Low-Mass Stars
Jonathan Gagné, Peter Plavchan, Peter Gao +26
We present the results of a precise near-infrared (NIR) radial velocity (RV) survey of 32 low-mass stars with spectral types K2-M4 using CSHELL at the NASA IRTF in the -band wit…
Precise Near-Infrared Radial Velocities
Peter Plavchan, Peter Gao, Jonathan Gagne +31
We present the results of two 2.3 micron near-infrared radial velocity surveys to detect exoplanets around 36 nearby and young M dwarfs. We use the CSHELL spectrograph (R ~46,000)…
Precise Near-Infrared Radial Velocities with iSHELL
Bryson Cale, Peter Plavchan, Jonathan Gagné +3
We present a possible NASA key project using the iSHELL near-infrared high-resolution echelle spectrograph on the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility for precise radial velocity follo…
The Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems: The Search for and Characterization of Young Planets
Charles Beichman, Isabelle Baraffe, Christopher Crockett +16
Despite the revolution in our knowledge resulting from the detection of planets around mature stars, we know almost nothing about planets orbiting young stars because rapid rotatio…
Survey of Nearby FGK Stars at 160 microns with Spitzer
Angelle Tanner, Charles Beichman, Geoff Bryden +2
The Spitzer Space Telescope has advanced debris disk science tremendously with a wealth of information on debris disks around nearby A, F, G, K and M stars at 24 and 70 microns wit…
A planet within the debris disk around the pre-main-sequence star AU Microscopii
Peter Plavchan, Thomas Barclay, Jonathan Gagné +84
AU Microscopii (AU Mic) is the second closest pre main sequence star, at a distance of 9.79 parsecs and with an age of 22 million years. AU Mic possesses a relatively rare and spat…
Herschel Observations of Disks around Late-type Stars
Angelle Tanner, Peter Plavchan, Geoff Bryden +9
A set of twenty late-type (K5-M5) stars were observed with the Herschel Space Observatory at 100 and 160 microns with the goal of searching for far-infrared excesses indicative of…
Validating AU Microscopii d with Transit Timing Variations
Justin M. Wittrock, Peter Plavchan, Bryson L. Cale +31
AU Mic is a young (22 Myr) nearby exoplanetary system that exhibits excess TTVs that cannot be accounted for by the two known transiting planets nor stellar activity. We present th…
Precision near-infrared radial velocity instrumentation I: Absorption Gas Cells
Peter P. Plavchan, Guillem Anglada-Escude, Russel White +18
We have built and commissioned gas absorption cells for precision spectroscopic radial velocity measurements in the near-infrared in the H and K bands. We describe the construction…
Flares, Rotation, and Planets of the AU Mic System from TESS Observations
Emily A. Gilbert, Thomas Barclay, Elisa V. Quintana +20
AU Mic is a young (24 Myr), pre-Main Sequence M~dwarf star that was observed in the first month of science observations of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) an…
Keck NIRSPEC Radial Velocity Observations of Late-M dwarfs
Angelle Tanner, Russel White, John Bailey +5
We present the results of an infrared spectroscopic survey of 23 late-M dwarfs with the NIRSPEC echelle spectrometer on the Keck II telescope. Using telluric lines for wavelength c…
A Hot Saturn Orbiting An Oscillating Late Subgiant Discovered by TESS
Daniel Huber, William J. Chaplin, Ashley Chontos +139
We present the discovery of TOI-197.01, the first transiting planet identified by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) for which asteroseismology of the host star is po…
EarthFinder: A Precise Radial Velocity Probe Mission Concept For the Detection of Earth-Mass Planets Orbiting Sun-like Stars
Peter Plavchan, Bryson Cale, Patrick Newman +40
EarthFinder is a Probe Mission concept selected for study by NASA for input to the 2020 astronomy decadal survey. This study is currently active and a final white paper report is d…
Wide-Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST) Interim Report
James Green, Paul Schechter, Charles Baltay +19
In December 2010, NASA created a Science Definition Team (SDT) for WFIRST, the Wide Field Infra-Red Survey Telescope, recommended by the Astro 2010 Decadal Survey as the highest pr…
Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory Detailed Science Case 2024
Warren Skidmore, Bob Kirshner, David Andersen +168
The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) International Observatory (TIO) will be a revolutionary leap forward in astronomical observing capabilities, enabling us to address some of the mos…
A close-in puffy Neptune with hidden friends: The enigma of TOI 620
Michael A. Reefe, Rafael Luque, Eric Gaidos +82
We present the validation of a transiting low-density exoplanet orbiting the M2.5 dwarf TOI 620 discovered by the NASA TESS mission. We utilize photometric data from both TESS and…
Final Report for SAG 22: A Target Star Archive for Exoplanet Science
Natalie R. Hinkel, Joshua Pepper, Christopher C. Stark +33
Present and upcoming NASA missions will be intensively observing a selected, partially overlapping set of stars for exoplanet studies. Key physical and chemical information about t…
TOI 560 : Two Transiting Planets Orbiting a K Dwarf Validated with iSHELL, PFS and HIRES RVs
Mohammed El Mufti, Peter P. Plavchan, Howard Isaacson +92
We validate the presence of a two-planet system orbiting the 0.15--1.4 Gyr K4 dwarf TOI 560 (HD 73583). The system consists of an inner moderately eccentric transiting mini-Neptune…
Pinwheels in the Quintuplet Cluster
Peter Tuthill, John Monnier, Angelle Tanner +3
The five enigmatic Cocoon stars after which the Quintuplet cluster was christened have puzzled astronomers since their discovery. Their extraordinary cool, featureless thermal spec…
High Spectral Resolution Observations of the Massive Stars in the Galactic Center
Angelle Tanner, Donald F. Figer, Paco Najarro +10
We present high-resolution near-infrared spectra, obtained with the NIRSPEC spectrograph on the W. M. Keck II Telescope, of a collection of hot, massive stars within the central 25…
The Origins Space Telescope: Towards An Understanding of Temperate Planetary Atmospheres
Jonathan Fortney, Tiffany Kataria, Kevin Stevenson +46
The Origins Space Telescope (OST) is one of four mission concepts currently being studied by NASA in preparation for the Astrophysics 2020 Decadal Survey. With active cooling (~4 K…
Starshade Exoplanet Data Challenge: What We Learned
Mario Damiano, Stuart Shaklan, Renyu Hu +6
Starshade is one of the technologies that will enable the observation and characterization of small planets around nearby stars through direct imaging. The Starshade Exoplanetary D…