A decade searching for stellar planetary companions with the HF technique
- Paper ID
IAF-91-604
- author
- company
Department of Geophysics & Astronomy, University of British Columbia
- country
Canada
- year
1991
- abstract
We have monitored the differential radial velocities of 23 single, dwarf and sub-giant F, G, and K stars for the past eleven years (~ 100 nights) with the CFH 3.6 m telescope looking for the low-amplitude (tens of m s'1), long term (~ years) reflex motion expected from companions of planetary mass. We achieve a mean external error of 13 m s_1 per observation. Half of the stars have significant, long-term velocity variations. The velocity variations of chromospherically active stars are partially correlated with changes in chromospheric activity. Some of the sub-giants may be intrinsic velocity variables. For the rest, the variability could well be orbital, caused by the presence of Jupiter-mass planets. We are in the process of rewriting the data reduction software and will present results of the most recent reduction at the meeting. In future we expect to calibrate night corrections by adopting a more realistic line spread function.