Suvrath Mahadevan (PSU) : Precision NIR Spectroscopy: Exoplanets, M Dwarfs, and Stellar Properties

A promising path to the discovery and study of individual rocky planets in the Habitable Zone around a star is to search for planets around nearby M dwarfs, as their mass and smaller HZ planet orbits leads to a significantly larger Doppler radial velocity signal than that of the Earth on our Sun.  Since the flux distribution of mid-late M dwarfs peaks  in the NIR a stable high-resolution NIR spectrograph capable of delivering high RV precision in the bands is a promising route to detecting rocky planets. I will discuss significant advances in precision NIR spectroscopy that may help achieve this goal, tests with laser frequency combs and other calibrators, and the ongoing design and build of the fiber-fed Habitable Zone Planet Finder (HPF) high resolution spectrograph.  I shall also discuss ongoing programs with SDSS APOGEE and IRTF to characterize the properties of M dwarfs.