The radial velocity (RV) technique has pushed the planet detection limits down to super-earths. To reach the precision required to detect earth-like planets it is necessary to reach a precision around 1cm.s^-1. Part of the error budget is due to noise in the wavelength calibration of the spectrograph. The Observatory of Geneva has designed, built and tested in collaboration with ESO a calibrator system based on a Fabry-Perot interferometer to explore its potential to improve the wavelength calibration of RV spectrographs. We have obtained exciting results with the calibrator system demonstrated 10 cm s^-1 stability over one night. By further improving the injection system we are aiming at a 1 m s^-1 repeatability over the long term.

Date Published: 20 July 2010
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 7735, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy III, 77354X (20 July 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.857951

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7735:
Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy III
Ian S. McLean; Suzanne K. Ramsay; Hideki Takami, Editor(s)