The Habitable-zone Planet Finder Calibration System

Abstract

We present the design concept of the wavelength calibration system for the Habitable-zone Planet Finder instrument (HPF), a precision radial velocity (RV) spectrograph designed to detect terrestrial-mass planets around M-dwarfs. HPF is a stabilized, fiber-fed, R$\sim$50,000 spectrograph operating in the near-infrared (NIR) z/Y/J bands from 0.84 to 1.3 microns. For HPF to achieve 1 m s${}^{-1}$ or better measurement precision, a unique calibration system, stable to several times better precision, will be needed to accurately remove instrumental effects at an unprecedented level in the NIR. The primary wavelength calibration source is a laser frequency comb (LFC), currently in development at NIST Boulder, discussed separately in these proceedings. The LFC will be supplemented by a stabilized single-mode fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer reference source and Uranium-Neon lamp. The HPF calibration system will combine several other new technologies developed by the Penn State Optical-Infrared instrumentation group to improve RV measurement precision including a dynamic optical coupling system that significantly reduces modal noise effects. Each component has been thoroughly tested in the laboratory and has demonstrated significant performance gains over previous NIR calibration systems.

6 pages, 5 figures, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014

References in corpus (4)

• CHIRON - A Fiber Fed Spectrometer for Precise Radial Velocities
• Demonstration of On-Sky Calibration of Astronomical Spectra using a 25 GHz near-IR Laser Frequency Comb
• Development of Fiber Fabry-Perot Interferometers as Stable Near-infrared Calibration Sources for High Resolution Spectrographs
• Suppression of Fiber Modal Noise Induced Radial Velocity Errors for Bright Emission-Line Calibration Sources

Cited by in corpus (5)

• The HETDEX Instrumentation: Hobby-Eberly Telescope Wide Field Upgrade and VIRUS
• Efficient injection from large telescopes into single-mode fibres: Enabling the era of ultra-precision astronomy
• Enhancing stellar spectroscopy with extreme adaptive optics and photonics
• An efficient, compact, and versatile fiber double scrambler for high precision radial velocity instruments
• Modal Noise Mitigation through Fiber Agitation for Fiber-fed Radial Velocity Spectrographs