Giant Planet Companions to T Tauri Stars

Ongoing campaigns to characterize the planets around main sequence stars can not directly identify the planet formation timescale. Observations of pre-main sequence T Tauri stars, however, could provide a snapshot of the early stages of planet formation. These 1-3 Myr old stars present significant challenges to traditional radial velocity (RV) surveys. The presence of large, cool star spots introduces significant RV jitter which can mimic the velocity modulation from a planetary companion.

I present a methodology for distinguishing stellar activity from true companions along with results from an ongoing multiwavelength RV survey of the Taurus-Auriga star forming region. I will discuss techniques for measuring precision RVs in the K band using CSHELL on the IRTF, measurements of our long term stability, success in recovering a known exoplanet, simulations of spot-induced RV variations, and our current prospects for characterizing the pre-main sequence planet population.