18 March 2004

Speaker: Dave Charbonneau (Caltech)

Title: Bok Prize Lecture (shared)
The Brown Dwarf Radial Velocity Survey

Abstract: The swarm of nearby brown dwarfs and very low mass stars is an attractive sample for radial velocity monitoring. Such work is best conducted with an echelle spectrograph operating at infrared wavelengths where these objects (i) are most luminous, (ii) have a forest of molecular features, providing an excellent velocity metric, and {iii) are superimposed on the telluric spectrum, which yields the requisite wavelength calibration. I will present first results from such a survey, with a precision sufficient to detect Jupiter-mass planets with orbital periods of less than a year. Should such systems be uncovered, the planets would be amenable to direct study, due to system proximity, and the favorable contrast ratio between the planet and parent object.