The Carnegie Astrometric Planet Search Program
Alan P. Boss, Alycia J. Weinberger, Guillem Anglada-Escude, Ian B., Thompson, Gregory Burley, Christoph Birk, Steven H. Pravdo, Stuart B., Shaklan, George D. Gatewood, Steven R. Majewski, and Richard J. Patterson

TL;DR
This paper describes the development and initial results of an astrometric program using specialized cameras to detect low-mass companions around nearby low-mass stars, aiming to understand planet formation around such stars.
Contribution
Introduction of the CAPSCam system and data reduction methods for high-precision astrometry targeting low-mass stars.
Findings
Achieved 0.3 milliarcsec astrometric accuracy per hour.
Potential to detect Jupiter-mass planets at 1 AU around 10 pc late M dwarfs.
Plan to monitor ~100 stars over 10 years for low-mass companions.
Abstract
We are undertaking an astrometric search for gas giant planets and brown dwarfs orbiting nearby low mass dwarf stars with the 2.5-m du Pont telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. We have built two specialized astrometric cameras, the Carnegie Astrometric Planet Search Cameras (CAPSCam-S and CAPSCam-N), using two Teledyne Hawaii-2RG HyViSI arrays, with the cameras' design having been optimized for high accuracy astrometry of M dwarf stars. We describe two independent CAPSCam data reduction approaches and present a detailed analysis of the observations to date of one of our target stars, NLTT 48256. Observations of NLTT 48256 taken since July 2007 with CAPSCam-S imply that astrometric accuracies of around 0.3 milliarcsec per hour are achievable, sufficient to detect a Jupiter-mass companion orbiting 1 AU from a late M dwarf 10 pc away with a signal-to-noise ratio of about 4.…
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