High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher

Montage of the HARPS spectrograph and the 3.6m telescope at La Silla. The upper left shows the dome of the telescope, while the upper right illustrates the telescope itself. The HARPS spectrograph is shown in the lower image during laboratory tests. The vacuum tank is open so that some of the high-precision components inside can be seen

The High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) is a high-precision echelle planet-finding spectrograph installed in 2002 on the ESO's 3.6m telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. The first light was achieved in February 2003. HARPS has discovered over 130 exoplanets to date, with the first one in 2004, making it the most successful planet finder behind the Kepler space observatory. It is a second-generation radial-velocity spectrograph, based on experience with the ELODIE and CORALIE instruments.^[1]

Characteristics[]

The HARPS can attain a precision of 0.97 m/s (3.5 km/h),^[2] with an effective precision of the order of 30 cm s⁻¹,^{[3][relevant?]} making it one of only two instruments worldwide with such accuracy.^{[citation needed]} This is due to a design in which the target star and a reference spectrum from a thorium lamp are observed simultaneously using two identical optic fibre feeds, and to careful attention to mechanical stability: the instrument sits in a vacuum vessel which is temperature-controlled to within 0.01 kelvins.^[4] The precision and sensitivity of the instrument is such that it incidentally produced the best available measurement of the thorium spectrum.^{[citation needed]} Planet-detection is in some cases limited by the seismic pulsations of the star observed rather than by limitations of the instrument.^[5]

The principal investigator on the HARPS is Michel Mayor who, along with Didier Queloz and Stéphane Udry, have used the instrument to characterize the Gliese 581 planetary system, home to one of the smallest known exoplanets orbiting a normal star, and two super-Earths whose orbits lie in the star's habitable zone.^[6]

It was initially used for a survey of one-thousand stars.^{[citation needed]}

Since October 2012 the HARPS spectrograph has the precision to detect a new category of planets: habitable super-Earths. This sensitivity was expected from simulations of stellar intrinsic signals, and actual observations of planetary systems. Currently, the HARPS can detect habitable super-Earth only around low-mass stars as these are more affected by gravitational tug from planets and have habitable zones close to the host star.^[7]

Discoveries[]

This is an incomplete list of exoplanets discovered by the HARPS. The list is sorted by the date of the discovery's announcement. As of December 2017, the list contains 134 exoplanets.

Notes

• (a) — M sin i brown dwarf
• (b) — brown dwarf
• (c) — shorter period

Gallery[]

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  HELIOS instrument installed to feed sunlight via fibre optics to the HARPS^[8]

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  A decade of discoveries from HARPS^[9]

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  HARPS spectrograph

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  HARPS spectrograph detail

• Play media

  Animation of HD 10180 with its seven planets

See also[]

ESO 3.6-metre telescope is home to the world's foremost exoplanet hunter, HARPS.^[10]

Similar instruments:

• HARPS-N is a copy of this instrument installed in the northern hemisphere in 2012.
• Fiber-optic Improved Next-generation Doppler Search for Exo-Earths, operating at Lick observatory since 2009
• Anglo-Australian Planet Search or AAPS is another southern hemisphere planet search program.
• ESPRESSO is a new-generation spectrograph for ESO's VLT.
• Automated Planet Finder, in commissioning at the Lick observatory

Space based detectors :

• COROT, spacecraft operating since 2007
• Kepler, operational since 2009
• Terrestrial Planet Finder, not funded, probably cancelled
• Space Interferometry Mission, construction halted in 2010
• Darwin, early studies for a multi-satellite mission

References[]

External links[]

• Media related to HARPS spectrograph at Wikimedia Commons
• "HARPS Home Page". ESO. Retrieved 25 April 2009.
• "The Exoplanet Hunter HARPS: unequalled accuracy and perspectives towards 1 cm/s precision" (PDF). ESO. (Contains list of discoveries from 2005 survey.)
• "New Planet-Hunting Technology Accelerates Discovery of Exo-Planets & Solar Systems". Daily Galaxy. 17 June 2008. Archived from the original on 7 October 2008. Retrieved 19 October 2008.
• "Astronomers discover 4 new planets". NASA. 27 March 2007. Archived from the original on 22 April 2007.