Title: Harnessing the power of radial velocity exoplanet science with NEID and NETS
Speaker: Arvind Gupta (NOIRLab)
Abstract:
Designed to detect and characterize exoplanets and their host stars, NEID is an optical, extreme precision radial velocity spectrograph located at the WIYN 3.5 m Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. In the five years since NEID science operations commenced, the spectrograph has contributed to a diverse portfolio of exoplanet science results. Leveraging synergies with TESS and Gaia, the NEID has added to the census of giant exoplanets and contributed to our understanding of how these systems form and evolve. NEID has also been at the forefront of efforts to understand, and ultimately mitigate, the effects of intrinsic stellar variability, which is the final obstacle to the radial velocity detection of Earth-like planets.
I will present brief highlights from a NEID campaign to confirm and characterize warm Jupiter exoplanets, including the recent discovery of a super-eccentric (e=0.94) planet on a retrograde orbit, and I will then discuss early results and performance metrics from the NEID Earth Twin Survey (NETS), with which my team has been monitoring a sample of nearby Sun-like stars in search of low-mass, long-period exoplanets. The NETS data set has enabled new exoplanet discoveries, the refinement of cutting-edge stellar variability mitigation methods, and detailed characterization of the performance of the spectrograph itself. I will conclude with a summary of the future outlook of NETS, which is now perfectly positioned to play a key role in informing the design and target selection for the future space-based exo-Earth observations in reflected light as we continue to push the envelope of radial velocity exoplanet detection capabilities.