Habitable Earth-like Planet Surveys with Next Generation Extremely High Resolution and High Doppler Precision Optical and Near IR Spectrographs

Two major high precision Doppler surveys for habitable Earth-like planets are about to launch in 2013 using next generation extremely high spectral resolution and high Doppler precision optical and near infrared (NIR) spectrographs developed at UF in 2009-2012. The optical spectrograph, called EXtremely high Precision ExtrasolaR planet Tracker (EXPERT) III (EXPERT-III), produces a spectral resolution over R=100,000 and simultaneously covers 0.38-0.9 mm with a 4kx4k back-illuminated Fairchild CCD detector in a single exposure. It will be coupled to the KPNO 2.1-m telescope. The near IR spectrograph, called the Florida IR Silicon immersion grating spectromeTer (FIRST), produces R=70,000 at 1.4-1.8 mm or R=60,000 at 0.8-1.35 mm in a single exposure with a 2kx2k H2RG IR array. It will be coupled with the Tennessee State University 2-m Automatic Spectroscopic Telescope (AST) at Fairborn Observatory in Arizona. Our rocky planet survey with EXPERT-III will primarily target habitable zone (HZ) rocky planets around nearby ~300 bright K0-M4 dwarfs with V<8.5. Our NIR M dwarf survey is the first large-scale NIR high precision Doppler survey dedicated to detecting and characterizing planets around ~200 nearby M dwarfs with J< 10. A combination of the EXPERT-III HZ planet survey in the optical wavelengths with the FIRST HZ planet survey around M4-M9 dwarfs in the near IR wavelengths will give us a broad view of HZ planets around low-mass stars for the first time. The overall planet sample will substantially increase the power for the statistical study of planet occurrence and properties and constraining planet formation models and physical conditions around low mass (0.2-0.8 M ) stars. We will report the early Doppler performance of both survey instruments on the telescopes.