Development of highly sensitive monolithic interferometer for infrared planet search

Abstract

We present the design, fabrication and testing of a highly sensitive monolithic interferometer for InfraRed Exoplanet Tracker (IR-ET). This interferometer is field-compensated, thermal-stable for working in the wavelength range between 0.8 and 1.35 μm. Two arms of the interferometer creates a fixed delay of 18.0 mm, which is optimized to have the best sensitivity for radial velocity measurements of slow-rotating M dwarfs for planet detection. IR-ET is aiming to reach 3–20 m/s Doppler precision for J<10 M dwarfs in less than 15 min exposures. We plan to conduct a planet survey around hundreds of nearby M dwarfs through collaborations with Astrophysical Research Consortium scientists in 2011–2014.