Precision Near-Infrared Radial Velocity Instrumentation and Exoplanet Survey

We have built and commissioned a gas absorption cell and non-circular core fiber scrambler for precision spectroscopic radial velocity measurements in the near-infrared. We are currently carrying out a pilot survey with the gas cell and the CSHELL spectrograph at the NASA InfraRed Telescope Facility (IRTF) to detect exoplanets around low mass and young stars. We discuss the current status of our survey, with the aim of photon-noise limited radial velocity precision. For adequately bright targets, we are able to probe a noise floor of ~7 m/s with the gas cell with CSHELL at cassegrain focus. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of applying these calibration and illumination stabilization techniques to the next generation of near-infrared spectrographs such as iSHELL on IRTF and an upgraded NIRSPEC at Keck.