On The Use of Absorption Cells as a Wavelength Reference for Precision Radial Velocity Measurements in the Near Infrared

Abstract

Considerable interest is now focused on the detection of terrestrial mass planets around M dwarfs, and radial velocity surveys with high-resolution spectrographs in the near infrared are expected to be able to discover such planets. We explore the possibility of using commercially available molecular absorption gas cells as a wavelength reference standard for high-resolution fiber-fed spectrographs in the near-infrared. We consider the relative merits and disadvantages of using such cells compared to Thorium-Argon emission lamps and conclude that in the astronomical H band they are a viable method of simultaneous calibration, yielding an acceptable wavelength calibration error for most applications. Four well-characterized and commercially available standard gas cells of HCN, 12C${}_2$H${}_2$, 12CO, and 13CO can together span over 120nm of the H band, making them suitable for use in astronomical spectrographs. The use of isotopologues of these molecules can increase line densities and wavelength coverage, extending their application to different wavelength regions.

Accepted for Publication to ApJ

References in corpus (14)

• A Neptune-Mass Planet Orbiting the Nearby M Dwarf GJ 436
• A laser frequency comb that enables radial velocity measurements with a precision of 1 cm s${}^{-1}$
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• High-precision wavelength calibration of astronomical spectrographs with laser frequency combs
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• APOGEE: The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment
• The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets: XIV. Gl 176b, a super-Earth rather than a Neptune, and at a different period
• Astronomical spectrograph calibration with broad-spectrum frequency combs
• Photometric variability of the T Tauri star TW Hya on time scales of hours to years
• A Young Planet Search in Visible and IR Light: DN Tau, V836 Tau, and V827 Tau
• An m sin i = 24 Earth Mass Planetary Companion To The Nearby M Dwarf GJ 176
• High Precision Radial Velocity Measurements in the Infrared: A First Assessment of the RV Stability of CRIRES
• A Pathfinder Instrument for Precision Radial Velocities in the Near-Infrared

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Detecting Planets Around Very Low Mass Stars with the Radial Velocity Method
• The NIRSPEC Ultracool Dwarf Radial Velocity Survey
• The CRIRES Search for Planets Around the Lowest-Mass Stars. I. High-Precision Near-Infrared Radial Velocities with an Ammonia Gas Cell
• Demonstration of On-Sky Calibration of Astronomical Spectra using a 25 GHz near-IR Laser Frequency Comb
• Instrumentation for the detection and characterization of exoplanets
• Precision radial velocities of 15 M5 - M9 dwarfs
• The Infrared Spectrum of Uranium Hollow Cathode Lamps from 850 nm to 4000 nm: Wavenumbers and Line Identifications from Fourier Transform Spectra
• Radial Velocities with CRIRES: Pushing precision down to 5-10 m/s
• Development of Fiber Fabry-Perot Interferometers as Stable Near-infrared Calibration Sources for High Resolution Spectrographs
• ROPS: A New Search for Habitable Earths in the Southern Sky
• Stabilizing a Fabry-Perot etalon to 3 cm/s for spectrograph calibration
• Design and Construction of Absorption Cells for Precision Radial Velocities in the K Band using Methane Isotopologues
• A New Gas Cell for High-Precision Doppler Measurements in the Near-Infrared
• A High-Resolution Atlas of Uranium-Neon in the H Band
• A multi-method approach to radial-velocity measurement for single-object spectra
• Detecting Planets around Very Cool Dwarfs at Near Infrared Wavelengths with the Radial Velocity Technique
• Retrieval of Precise Radial Velocities from Near-Infrared High Resolution Spectra of Low Mass Stars