Seminario DAS: Probing Giant planets with HARPS, NIRPS and CORALIE

Speaker: Yolanda Frensch, PhD student
Affiliation: University of Geneva

Abstract: The long-term, ongoing, volume-limited HARPS radial velocity survey of extrasolar planets, initiated in 2003, provides a unique dataset with a 21-year baseline that enables the detection of long-period exoplanets, brown dwarfs, and low-mass binaries. Currently, only 6% of the discovered exoplanets have periods longer than 3 years; we are probing this largely unknown population. With the recent installation of NIRPS on the 3.6m telescope in La Silla, we expand our search to the nIR to include gas giants orbiting low-mass stars - a regime for which core-accretion models suggest a zero-occurrence rate. The presentation will cover our recent discoveries and the methodologies used, as well as provide an overview of the NIRPS instrumentation and outlining the prospects of ongoing surveys.