Title: Detecting Rocky Exoplanets with Precise Radial Velocities  

Speaker: 王雪凇（Sharon Xuesong Wang) 

Time: Sept 11 Tuesday 10:00 am 

Location: Middle conference 

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.