A New Era of Precision in Doppler Exoplanet Science

Assistant Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy

University of California, Irvine

The field of observational exoplanet science is moving from simply identifying nearby exoplanets to characterizing their detailed properties. One of the advances that has enabled this paradigm shift is the push towards an order-of-magnitude improvement in the precision with which we may measure the Doppler shifts of FGKM stars in the Solar neighborhood.

Dr. Roberston will detail some of the technological breakthroughs behind this improvement, using the new Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF) and NEID spectrometers as representative examples. HPF is now on sky, and has begun full science operations. Thus, I will conclude by highlighting the exquisite measurement precision and early science results of HPF.