Abstract

An all sky extrasolar planet survey (ASEPS) with the Sloan 2.5m wide field telescope is being developed for monitoring 1,000,000 nearby stars over a decade to detect ~ 100,000 planets. This survey is enabled by a new generation multiple object Doppler radial velocity instrument based on new Doppler technology called dispersed fixed-delay interferometry pioneered by Ge’s group over last four years. The instrument capable of observing hundreds of stars in a single observation increases the planet survey speed by more than two orders of magnitude over current single object echelle instruments which have been used to detect over 100 extrasolar planets since the first one detected in 1995 (Mayor & Queloz). One new instrument is designed for monitoring F,G,K and early M type stars in the visible and looking for planetary systems similar to our own. The other one is designed for monitoring late M type low mass stars in the infrared aiming at detection of earth-like planets in a habitable zone, which may host life. In the end of the survey, the total numbers of know extrasolar planetary systems will be increased by hundreds of times over current total number of known planets. This survey will provide a powerful statistical base for understanding different kinds of extrasolar planetary systems and their formation and evolution. Some of these systems will be excellent candidates for the future, NASA sponsored, Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) space missions, for directly imaging earth-like planets around other stars. The survey will also detect thousands of transit planets that pass through the sightline between the Earth and stars, which will be used for studying the chemical compositions and the physical conditions of these planets.

© 2005 Optical Society of America