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Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto

State of the Field: Extreme Precision Radial Velocities

D. A. Fischer, G. Anglada-Escude, P. Arriagada, R. V. Baluev, J. L. Bean, F. Bouchy, L. A. Buchhave, T. Carroll, A. Chakraborty, J. R. Crepp, R. I. Dawson, S. A. Diddams, X. Dumusque, J. D. Eastman, M. Endl, P. Figueira, E. B. Ford, D. Foreman-Mackey, P. Fournier, G. Fürész, B. Scott Gaudi, P. C. Gregory, F. Grundahl, A. Hatzes, G. Hébrard, E. Herrero, D. W. Hogg, A. W. Howard, J. A. Johnson, P. Jorden, C. A. Jurgenson, D. W. Latham, G. Laughlin, T. J. Loredo, C. Lovis, S. Mahadevan, T. M. McCracken, F. Pepe, M. R. Perez, D. F. Phillips, P. P. Plavchan, L. Prato, A. Quirrenbach, A. Reiners, P. Robertson, N. C. Santos, D. Sawyer, D. Segransan, A. Sozzetti, T. Steinmetz, A. Szentgyorgyi, S. Udry, J. A. Valenti, S. X. Wang, R. A. Wittenmyer, J. T. Wright

Abstract
The Second Workshop on Extreme Precision Radial Velocities defined circa 2015 the state of the art Doppler precision and identified the critical path challenges for reaching 10 cm s-1 measurement precision. The presentations and discussion of key issues for instrumentation and data analysis and the workshop recommendations for achieving this bold precision are summarized here. Beginning with the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher spectrograph, technological advances for precision radial velocity (RV) measurements have focused on building extremely stable instruments. To reach still higher precision, future spectrometers will need to improve upon the state of the art, producing even higher fidelity spectra. This should be possible with improved environmental control, greater stability in the illumination of the spectrometer optics, better detectors, more precise wavelength calibration, and broader bandwidth spectra. Key data analysis challenges for the precision RV community include distinguishing center of mass (COM) Keplerian motion from photospheric velocities (time correlated noise) and the proper treatment of telluric contamination. Success here is coupled to the instrument design, but also requires the implementation of robust statistical and modeling techniques. COM velocities produce Doppler shifts that affect every line identically, while photospheric velocities produce line profile asymmetries with wavelength and temporal dependencies that are different from Keplerian signals. Exoplanets are an important subfield of astronomy and there has been an impressive rate of discovery over the past two decades. However, higher precision RV measurements are required to serve as a discovery technique for potentially habitable worlds, to confirm and characterize detections from transit missions, and to provide mass measurements for other space-based missions. The future of exoplanet science has very different trajectories depending on the precision that can ultimately be achieved with Doppler measurements.

Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Volume 128
May 2016

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Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences (IA) is a new but long anticipated research infrastructure with a national dimension. It embodies a bold but feasible vision for the development of Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Sciences in Portugal, taking full advantage and fully realizing the potential created by the national membership of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). IA resulted from the merging the two most prominent research units in the field in Portugal: the Centre for Astrophysics of the University of Porto (CAUP) and the Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics of the University of Lisbon (CAAUL). It currently hosts more than two-thirds of all active researchers working in Space Sciences in Portugal, and is responsible for an even greater fraction of the national productivity in international ISI journals in the area of Space Sciences. This is the scientific area with the highest relative impact factor (1.65 times above the international average) and the field with the highest average number of citations per article for Portugal.

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