The Habitable-Zone Planet Finder: A Stabilized Fiber-Fed NIR Spectrograph for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope

TL;DR

The paper details the design and scientific motivation of the Habitable-zone Planet Finder, a stabilized NIR spectrograph for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope aimed at discovering low-mass planets around M dwarfs.

Contribution

It introduces a new stabilized fiber-fed NIR spectrograph with innovative design features for precise radial velocity measurements on M dwarfs.

Findings

Design of a cryostat cooled to 200K for the spectrograph

Implementation of a dual fiber-feed system with calibration capabilities

Testing of laser frequency combs for improved radial velocity precision

Abstract

We present the scientific motivation and conceptual design for the recently funded Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF), a stabilized fiber-fed near-infrared (NIR) spectrograph for the 10 meter class Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) that will be capable of discovering low mass planets around M dwarfs. The HPF will cover the NIR Y & J bands to enable precise radial velocities to be obtained on mid M dwarfs, and enable the detection of low mass planets around these stars. The conceptual design is comprised of a cryostat cooled to 200K, a dual fiber-feed with a science and calibration fiber, a gold coated mosaic echelle grating, and a Teledyne Hawaii-2RG (H2RG) NIR detector with a 1.7$\mu$m cutoff. A uranium-neon hollow-cathode lamp is the baseline wavelength calibration source, and we are actively testing laser frequency combs to enable even higher radial velocity precision. We will present the overall instrument system design and integration with the HET, and discuss major system challenges, key choices, and ongoing research and development projects to mitigate risk. We also discuss the ongoing process of target selection for the HPF survey.