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Register a new userThree Years of HARPS-N High-Resolution Spectroscopy and Precise Radial Velocity Data for the Sun
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The solar telescope connected to HARPS-N has been observing the Sun since the summer of 2015. Such high-cadence, long-baseline data set is crucial for understanding spurious radial-velocity signals induced by our Sun and by the instrument. On the instrumental side, this data set allowed us to detect sub-ms,systematics that needed to be corrected for. The goal of this manuscript is to i) present a new data reduction software for HARPS-N, ii) demonstrate the improvement brought by this new software on the first three years of the HARPS-N solar data set, and iii) release all the obtained solar products, from extracted spectra to precise radial velocities. To correct for the instrumental systematics observed in the data reduced with the current version of the HARPS-N data reduction software (DRS version 3.7), we adapted the newly available ESPRESSO DRS (version 2.2.3) to HARPS-N and developed new optimized recipes for the spectrograph. We then compared the first three years of HARPS-N solar data reduced with the current and new DRS. The most significant improvement brought by the new DRS is a strong decrease in the day-to-day radial-velocity scatter, from 1.27 to 1.07ms; this is thanks to a more robust method to derive wavelength solutions, but also to the use of calibrations closer in time. The newly derived solar radial-velocities are also better correlated with the chromospheric activity level of the Sun on the long-term, with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.93 compared to 0.77 before, which is expected from our understanding of stellar signals. Finally, we also discuss how HARPS-N spectral ghosts contaminate the measurement of the calcium activity index, and present an efficient technique to derive an index free of instrumental systematics. This paper presents a new data reduction software for HARPS-N, and demonstrates its improvements [...]
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The time-variable velocity fields of solar-type stars limit the precision of radial-velocity determinations of their planets masses, obstructing detection of Earth twins. Since 2015 July we have been monitoring disc-integrated sunlight in daytime using a purpose-built solar telescope and fibre feed to the HARPS-N stellar radial-velocity spectrometer. We present and analyse the solar radial-velocity measurements and cross-correlation function (CCF) parameters obtained in the first 3 years of observation, interpreting them in the context of spatially-resolved solar observations. We describe a Bayesian mixture-model approach to automated data-quality monitoring. We provide dynamical and daily differential-extinction corrections to place the radial velocities in the heliocentric reference frame, and the CCF shape parameters in the sidereal frame. We achieve a photon-noise limited radial-velocity precision better than 0.43 m s$^{-1}$ per 5-minute observation. The day-to-day precision is limited by zero-point calibration uncertainty with an RMS scatter of about 0.4 m s$^{-1}$. We find significant signals from granulation and solar activity. Within a day, granulation noise dominates, with an amplitude of about 0.4 m s$^{-1}$ and an autocorrelation half-life of 15 minutes. On longer timescales, activity dominates. Sunspot groups broaden the CCF as they cross the solar disc. Facular regions temporarily reduce the intrinsic asymmetry of the CCF. The radial-velocity increase that accompanies an active-region passage has a typical amplitude of 5 m s$^{-1}$ and is correlated with the line asymmetry, but leads it by 3 days. Spectral line-shape variability thus shows promise as a proxy for recovering the true radial velocity.
The radial velocity of the Sun as a star is affected by its surface convection and magnetic activity. The moments of the cross-correlation function between the solar spectrum and a binary line mask contain information about the stellar radial velocity and line-profile distortions caused by stellar activity. As additional indicators, we consider the disc-averaged magnetic flux and the filling factor of the magnetic regions. Here we show that the activity-induced radial-velocity fluctuations are reduced when we apply a kernel regression to these activity indicators. The disc-averaged magnetic flux proves to be the best activity proxy over a timescale of one month and gives a standard deviation of the regression residuals of 1.04 m/s, more than a factor of 2.8 smaller than the standard deviation of the original radial velocity fluctuations. This result has been achieved thanks to the high-cadence and time continuity of the observations that simultaneously sample both the radial velocity and the activity proxies.
The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) started median-resolution spectroscopic (MRS, R$sim$7500) survey since October 2018. The main scientific goals of MRS, including binary stars, pulsators, and other variable stars are launched with a time-domain spectroscopic survey. However, the systematic errors, including the bias induced from wavelength calibration and the systematic difference between different spectrographs have to be carefully considered during radial velocity measurement. In this work, we provide a technique to correct the systematics in the wavelength calibration based on the relative radial velocity measurements from LAMOST MRS spectra. We show that, for the stars with multi-epoch spectra, the systematic bias which is induced from the exposures of different nights can be well corrected for LAMOST MRS in each spectrograph. And the precision of radial velocity zero-point of multi-epoch time-domain observations reaches below 0.5 km/s . As a by-product, we also give the constant star candidates, which can be the secondary radial-velocity standard star candidates of LAMOST MRS time-domain surveys.
EarthFinder is a Probe Mission concept selected for study by NASA for input to the 2020 astronomy decadal survey. This study is currently active and a final white paper report is due to NASA at the end of calendar 2018. We are tasked with evaluating the scientific rationale for obtaining precise radial velocity (PRV) measurements in space, which is a two-part inquiry: What can be gained from going to space? What cant be done form the ground? These two questions flow down to these specific tasks for our study - Identify the velocity limit, if any, introduced from micro- and macro-telluric absorption in the Earths atmosphere; Evaluate the unique advantages that a space-based platform provides to emable the identification and mitigation of stellar acitivity for multi-planet signal recovery.
Minor bodies of the solar system can be used to measure the spectrum of the Sun as a star by observing sunlight reflected by their surfaces. To perform an accurate measurement of the radial velocity of the Sun as a star by this method, it is necessary to take into account the Doppler shifts introduced by the motion of the reflecting body. Here we discuss the effect of its rotation. It gives a vanishing contribution only when the inclinations of the body rotation axis to the directions of the Sun and of the Earth observer are the same. When this is not the case, the perturbation of the radial velocity does not vanish and can reach up to about 2.4 m/s for an asteroid such as 2 Pallas that has an inclination of the spin axis to the plane of the ecliptic of about 30 degrees. We introduce a geometric model to compute the perturbation in the case of a uniformly reflecting body of spherical or triaxial ellipsoidal shape and provide general results to easily estimate the magnitude of the effect.
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