The PI and his team plans to use the upgraded Hobby-Eberly Telescope High Resolution Spectrograph (HET HRS) to obtain high resolution (1-2 m/s) spectra of stars, and to use the Kepler database in order to discover new planets using the radial velocity technique. They will first measure the throughput of the newly upgraded HET HRS system, establish a target list from Kepler, and then they will conduct a census of gas and ice giants out to 2 AU for hundreds of host stars, including searches for inner rocky Earth-analog planets. The PI has institutional access to the HET.
This project will have broader impacts for the exoplanet community in that the PI will maintain and expand the online Exoplanet Orbit Database and Exoplanet Data Explorer web tools with the help of two undergraduate research students. He also plans to add educational activities to the websites. He will also mentor a postdoctoral associate in research and management.
