THE PLANET SEARCH PROGRAM OF THE THUERINGER LANDESSTERNWARTE TAUTENBURG: SEARCHING FOR EXTRASOLAR PLANETS FROM DEEP IN THE HEART OF GERMANY

摘要

In 2001 the Thueringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg (TLS) started a program to search for extrasolar planets using precise stellar radial velocity measurements among a diverse class of stars (e.g. young stars, binary systems, metal rich stars). Precise radial velocity measurements are made using the high resolution coude echelle spectrograph of the Alfred-Jensch 2m telescope and an iodine absorption cell. To date this program is capable of achieving a best RV precision of 3 ms~(-1) and a mean RV precision of 12 ms~(-1). About 40% of our sample shows rms scatter less than 10 ms~(-1). Part of our program is devoted to independent confirmation of extrasolar planet discoveries. Our RV measurements confirm the extrasolar planet in a 118 day period around HD 52265 first reported by Butler et al. The TLS measurements for HD 217107 confirm the 7-day period planet found by Fischer et al., but we cannot confirm the large linear trend seen in their data taken at Keck Observatory. The TLS program has also found a candidate brown dwarf (M sin i ≈ 20 M _(J upiter)) in an eccentric orbit.