A new-generation multi-object high throughput Doppler instrument for a planet survey at the SDSS Telescope

Abstract

We report the design of a new generation multi-object high throughput Doppler instrument and first light results at the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) telescope. This instrument, capable of simultaneously monitoring 60 stars for planet detection, is called the W.M. Keck Exoplanet Tracker (or Keck ET) thanks to the generous gift from the W.M. Keck Foundation. It is designed for a planet survey around hundreds of thousands of stars with V =8-13 for detecting tens of thousands of planets in 2006-2020. The Doppler precision is between 3-25 m/s depending on the star magnitude. We also report a new planet detected with a prototype single object version ET instrument at the KPNO Coude Feed/2.1 m telescopes. The extrasolar planet, ET-1 (HD 102195b), has a minimum mass of 0.49 Jupiter masses and orbits a V = 8.1 G8V star with a 4.1 day period. The planet was identified using the Coude Feed 0.9 meter telescope in spring 2005. This is the first time an extrasolar planet around a star fainter than V=8 magnitude has been discovered with an under 1 meter size astronomical telescope and Doppler instrument. This planet discovery is possible due to the extremely high throughput of the instrument, 49% measured from the fiber output end to the detector.