Calibrating Iodine Cells for Precise Radial Velocities

TL;DR

This paper investigates discrepancies in iodine spectra used for precise radial velocity measurements, attributing them to temperature variations, and demonstrates high-resolution spectra as effective validation tools for FTS spectra calibration.

Contribution

It identifies temperature fluctuations as a key factor affecting iodine spectra quality and proposes high-resolution spectra as a validation method for FTS spectra calibration.

Findings

Temperature changes cause discrepancies in iodine spectra.

High-resolution spectra can validate FTS spectra quality.

Proper temperature control improves RV measurement accuracy.

Abstract

High fidelity iodine spectra provide the wavelength and instrument calibration needed to extract precise radial velocities (RVs) from stellar spectral observations taken through iodine cells. Such iodine spectra are usually taken by a Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS). In this work, we investigated the reason behind the discrepancy between two FTS spectra of the iodine cell used for precise RV work with the High Resolution Spectrograph (HRS) at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. We concluded that the discrepancy between the two HRS FTS spectra was due to temperature changes of the iodine cell. Our work demonstrated that the ultra-high resolution spectra taken by the TS12 arm of the Tull Spectrograph One at McDonald Observatory are of similar quality to the FTS spectra and thus can be used to validate the FTS spectra. Using the software IodineSpec5, which computes the iodine absorption lines at different temperatures, we concluded that the HET/HRS cell was most likely not at its nominal operating temperature of 70 degree Celsius during its FTS scan at NIST or at the TS12 measurement. We found that extremely high resolution echelle spectra (R>200,000) can validate and diagnose deficiencies in FTS spectra. We also recommend best practices for temperature control and nightly calibration of iodine cells.