Title: Detecting Rocky Exoplanets with Precise Radial Velocities

Speaker: 王雪凇 博士
Institute: Carnegie Institution of Washington
Time: 2018.09.10（Monday） 14:30-16:30
Place: Physics Building 573, Haiyun Campus, Xiamen University

Abstract:

More than two decades after the first discovery of exoplanets, the field has moved into the era of finding populations of small planets, including the ones with a rocky composition that is similar to our Earth. Precise radial velocity (PRV) is taking the lead in surveying nearby bright stars for Earth analogs, while playing an important role in following up transiting exoplanets such as those discovered by Kepler (and TESS in the near future). With more than two dozen new PRV spectrographs being commissioned or built, we are now facing many challenges that emerge at the < 1 m/s level, which is the precision needed for finding and characterizing small, rocky planets. This talk focuses on projects addressing two of the challenges: stellar jitter/activity, and contamination from the Earth's atmosphere. I will also introduce our work with the Planet Finder Spectrograph on Magellan/Clay, including an upcoming Southern hemisphere TESS follow-up survey focusing on understanding the population of small planets.

Introduction:

Dr. Xuesong Wang (Sharon) is a Carnegie Fellow in Astronomy and Planetary Science at Carnegie DTM in Washington DC. She received her B.S. in Physics at Tsinghua University in 2008, and her Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State University in 2016. Her research focuses on improving the radial velocity precision in order to detect Earth-like planets. She is the PI for the RV×K2 and RV×TESS programs (rvxk2.com), which are simultaneous RV observational campaigns with Kepler/K2 or  TESS to investigate stellar RV jitter. She is the lead for the telluric study team for the NASA-funded mission concept study EarthFinder to investigate the effects and mitigation of telluric contamination on precise RVs. She is a member of the Magellan Planet Finder Spectrograph (PFS) team and a Co-I of the Southern hemisphere TESS follow-up survey with Magellan, and she is also a team member for several current and upcoming RV surveys and spectrographs, including NASA's WIYN-NEID and MINERVA.

（理论物理与天体物理研究所系列讲座之299）