How Close Are We To Detecting Earth-like Planets in the Habitable Zone Using the Radial Velocity Technique?
Discovering an Earth-like exoplanet in habitable zone is an important milestone for astronomers in search of extra-terrestrial life. While the radial velocity (RV) technique remains one the most powerful tools in detecting and characterizing exo-planetary sys- tems, we calculate the uncertainties in precision RV measurements considering stellar spectral quality factors, RV calibration sources, stellar noise and telluric contamination in different observational bandpasses and for different spectral types. We predict the optimal observational bandpass for different spectral types using the RV technique un- der a variety of conditions. We compare the RV signal of an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone (HZ) to the near future state of the art RV precision and attempt to answer the question: How close are we to detecting Earth-like planet in the HZ using the RV technique?

title: A Third Planet Orbiting HIP 14810
abstract: We present new precision radial velocities and a three-planet Keplerian orbit fit for the V = 8.5, G5 V star HIP 14810. We began observing this star at Keck Observatory as part of the N2K Planet Search Project. Wright et al. (2007) announced the inner two planets to this system, and subsequent observations have revealed the outer planet planet and the proper orbital solution for the middle planet. The planets have minimum masses of 3.9, 1.3, and 0.6 M_Jup and orbital periods of 6.67, 147.7, and 952 d, respectively. We have numerically integrated the family of orbital solutions consistent with the data and find that they are stable for at least 10^6 yr. Our photometric search shows that the inner planet does not transit.

title: FUNDAMENTAL PERFORMANCE OF A DISPERSED FIXED DELAY INTERFEROMETER IN SEARCHING FOR PLANETS AROUND M DWARFS
abstract: We present a new method to calculate fundamental Doppler measurement limits with a dispersed fixed delay interferometer (DFDI) in the near-infrared (NIR) wavelength region for searching for exoplanets around M dwarfs in the coming decade. It is based on calculating the Q factor, a measure of flux-normalized Doppler sensitivity in the fringing spectra created with DFDI. We calculate the Q factor as a function of spectral resolution R, stellar-projected rotational velocity Vsin i, stellar effective temperature T eff, and optical path difference (OPD) of the interferometer. We also compare the DFDI Q factor to that for the popular cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph method (the direct echelle (DE) method). We find that (1) Q DFDI is a factor of 1.5-3 higher than Q DE at R ranging from 5000 to 20,000; (2) Q DFDI and Q DE converge at a very high R (R ≥ 100,000); (3) Q DFDI increases as R increases and Vsin i deceases; (4) for a given R, Q DFDI increases as T eff drops from 3100 K to 2400 K (M4V to M9V). We also investigate how Q DFDI is affected by OPD and find that a 5 mm deviation from the optimal OPD does not significantly affect Q DFDI (10% or less) for a wide range of R. Given that the NIR Doppler measurement is likely to be detector-limited for a while, we introduce new merit functions, which is directly related to photon-limited radial velocity (RV) uncertainty, to evaluate Doppler performance with the DFDI and DE methods. We find that DFDI has strength in wavelength coverage and multi-object capability over the DE for a limited detector resource. We simulate the performance of the InfraRed Exoplanet Tracker (IRET) based on the DFDI design, being considered for the next generation IR Doppler measurements. The predicted photon-limited RV uncertainty suggests that IRET is capable of detecting Earth-like exoplanets in habitable zone around nearby bright M dwarfs if they exist. A new method is developed to quantitatively estimate the influence of telluric lines on RV uncertainty. Our study shows that photon-limited RV uncertainty can be reached if 99% of the strength of telluric lines can be removed from the measured stellar spectra. At low to moderate levels of telluric line strength removal (50%-90%), the optimal RV uncertainty is typically a factor of two to three times larger than photon-limited RV uncertainty.

title: PLANET HUNTERS. V. A CONFIRMED JUPITER-SIZE PLANET IN THE HABITABLE ZONE AND 42 PLANET CANDIDATES FROM THE KEPLER ARCHIVE DATA*
abstract: We report the latest Planet Hunter results, including PH2 b, a Jupiter-size (R PL = 10.12 ? 0.56 R ?) planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a solar-type star. PH2 b was elevated from candidate status when a series of false-positive tests yielded a 99.9% confidence level that transit events detected around the star KIC?12735740 had a planetary origin. Planet Hunter volunteers have also discovered 42 new planet candidates in the Kepler public archive data, of which 33 have at least 3 transits recorded. Most of these transit candidates have orbital periods longer than 100?days and 20 are potentially located in the habitable zones of their host stars. Nine candidates were detected with only two transit events and the prospective periods are longer than 400?days. The photometric models suggest that these objects have radii that range between those of Neptune and Jupiter. These detections nearly double the number of gas-giant planet candidates orbiting at habitable-zone distances. We conducted spectroscopic observations for nine of the brighter targets to improve the stellar parameters and we obtained adaptive optics imaging for four of the stars to search for blended background or foreground stars that could confuse our photometric modeling. We present an iterative analysis method to derive the stellar and planet properties and uncertainties by combining the available spectroscopic parameters, stellar evolution models, and transiting light curve parameters, weighted by the measurement errors. Planet Hunters is a citizen science project that crowd sources the assessment of NASA Kepler light curves. The discovery of these 43 planet candidates demonstrates the success of citizen scientists at identifying planet candidates, even in longer period orbits with only two or three transit events.

title: SDSS-III: Massive Spectroscopic Surveys of the Distant Universe, the Milky Way, and Extra-Solar Planetary Systems
abstract: Building on the legacy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-I and II), SDSS-III is a program of four spectroscopic surveys on three scientific themes: dark energy and cosmological parameters, the history and structure of the Milky Way, and the population of giant planets around other stars. In keeping with SDSS tradition, SDSS-III will provide regular public releases of all its data, beginning with SDSS DR8 (which occurred in Jan 2011). This paper presents an overview of the four SDSS-III surveys. BOSS will measure redshifts of 1.5 million massive galaxies and Lya forest spectra of 150,000 quasars, using the BAO feature of large scale structure to obtain percent-level determinations of the distance scale and Hubble expansion rate at z 100 per resolution element), H-band (1.51-1.70 micron) spectra of 10^5 evolved, late-type stars, measuring separate abundances for ~15 elements per star and creating the first high-precision spectroscopic survey of all Galactic stellar populations (bulge, bar, disks, halo) with a uniform set of stellar tracers and spectral diagnostics. MARVELS will monitor radial velocities of more than 8000 FGK stars with the sensitivity and cadence (10-40 m/s, ~24 visits per star) needed to detect giant planets with periods up to two years, providing an unprecedented data set for understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of giant planet systems.

title: MARVELS-1: A FACE-ON DOUBLE-LINED BINARY STAR MASQUERADING AS A RESONANT PLANETARY SYSTEM AND CONSIDERATION OF RARE FALSE POSITIVES IN RADIAL VELOCITY PLANET SEARCHES
abstract: We have analyzed new and previously published radial velocity (RV) observations of MARVELS-1, known to have an ostensibly substellar companion in a ~6 day orbit. We find significant (~100 m s–1) residuals to the best-fit model for the companion, and these residuals are naively consistent with an interior giant planet with a P = 1.965 days in a nearly perfect 3:1 period commensurability (|Pb /Pc – 3| < 10–4). We have performed several tests for the reality of such a companion, including a dynamical analysis, a search for photometric variability, and a hunt for contaminating stellar spectra. We find many reasons to be critical of a planetary interpretation, including the fact that most of the three-body dynamical solutions are unstable. We find no evidence for transits, and no evidence of stellar photometric variability. We have discovered two apparent companions to MARVELS-1 with adaptive optics imaging at Keck; both are M dwarfs, one is likely bound, and the other is likely a foreground object. We explore false-alarm scenarios inspired by various curiosities in the data. Ultimately, a line profile and bisector analysis lead us to conclude that the ~100 m s–1 residuals are an artifact of spectral contamination from a stellar companion contributing ~15%-30% of the optical light in the system. We conclude that origin of this contamination is the previously detected RV companion to MARVELS-1, which is not, as previously reported, a brown dwarf, but in fact a G dwarf in a face-on orbit.

title: A note on black hole masses estimated by the second moment in narrow-line Seyfert 1 Galaxies
abstract: The second moment of the H beta emission line is calculated for 329 narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s) selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which is used to calculate the central supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass of each. We find that the second moment depends strongly on the broader component of the H beta line profile. We find that for the NLS1s requiring two Gaussians to fit the H beta line, the mean value of the SMBH mass from the H beta second moment is larger by about 0.50 dex than that from the full width at half-maximum. Using the gas velocity dispersion of the core/narrow component of [O III]lambda 5007 to estimate the stellar velocity dispersion sigma*, the new mass makes NLS1s fall very close to the M(BH)-sigma* relation for normal active galactic nuclei. By using sigma* measured directly from SDSS spectra with a simple stellar population synthesis method, we find that for NLS1s with mass lower than 10(7) M(circle dot), they fall only marginally below the M(BH)-sigma* relation considering the large scatter in the mass calculation.

title: Search for massive resonances in dijet systems containing jets tagged as W or Z boson decays in pp collisions at s$$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 8 TeV
abstract: A bstractA search is reported for massive resonances decaying into a quark and a vector boson (W or Z), or two vector bosons (WW, WZ, or ZZ). The analysis is performed on an inclusive sample of multijet events corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb−1, collected in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC. The search uses novel jet-substructure identification techniques that provide sensitivity to the presence of highly boosted vector bosons decaying into a pair of quarks. Exclusion limits are set at a confidence level of 95% on the production of: (i) excited quark resonances q*decaying to qW and qZ for masses less than 3.2 TeV and 2.9 TeV, respectively, (ii) a Randall-Sundrum graviton GRS decaying into WW for masses below 1.2 TeV, and (iii) a heavy partner of the W boson W′ decaying into WZ for masses less than 1.7 TeV. For the first time mass limits are set on W′ → WZ and GRS → WW in the all-jets final state. The mass limits on q* → qW, q* → qZ, W′ → WZ, GRS → WW are the most stringent to date. A model with a “bulk” graviton Gbulk that decays into WW or ZZ bosons is also studied.

title: Design, Fabrication and Measurement of the First Rounded Damped Detuned Accelerator Structure (RDDS1)
abstract: As a joint effort in the JLC/NLC research program, the authors have developed a new type of damped detuned accelerator structure with optimized round-shaped cavities (RDDS). This paper discusses some important R and D aspects of the first structure in this series (RDDS1). The design aspects covered are the cell design with sub-MHz precision, HOM detuning, coupling and damping technique and wakefield simulation. The fabrication issues covered are ultra-precision cell machining with micron accuracy, assembly and diffusion bonding technologies to satisfactorily meet bookshelf, straightness and cell rotational alignment requirements. The measurements described are the RF properties of single cavities and complete accelerator section, as well as wakefields from the ASSET tests at SLAC. Finally, future improvements are also discussed.

title: ESTIMATING BLACK HOLE MASSES IN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI USING THE Mg II λ2800 EMISSION LINE
abstract: We investigate the relationship between the linewidths of broad Mg II lambda 2800 and H beta in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) to refine them as tools to estimate black hole (BH) masses. We perform a detailed spectral analysis of a large sample of AGNs at intermediate redshifts selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, along with a smaller sample of archival ultraviolet spectra for nearby sources monitored with reverberation mapping (RM). Careful attention is devoted to accurate spectral decomposition, especially in the treatment of narrow-line blending and Fe II contamination. We show that, contrary to popular belief, the velocity width of Mg II tends to be smaller than that of H beta, suggesting that the two species are not cospatial in the broad-line region. Using these findings and recently updated BH mass measurements from RM, we present a new calibration of the empirical prescriptions for estimating virial BH masses for AGNs using the broad Mg II and H beta lines. We show that the BH masses derived from our new formalisms show subtle but important differences compared to some of the mass estimators currently used in the literature.

title: Inclusive J/\psi Production In \Upsilon Decay Via Color-singlet Mechanism
abstract: In this work, we have calculated the tree level color-singlet contribution to the inclusive $J/\ensuremath{\psi}$ production in $\ensuremath{\Upsilon}$ decay of the ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{s}^{5}$ order QCD process $\ensuremath{\Upsilon}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}J/\ensuremath{\psi}+c\overline{c}g$ and ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}^{2}{\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{s}^{2}$ order QED processes $\ensuremath{\Upsilon}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\gamma}}^{*}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}J/\ensuremath{\psi}+c\overline{c}$ and $\ensuremath{\Upsilon}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}J/\ensuremath{\psi}+gg$. It is found that the contribution of the QED processes is comparable with that of the QCD process and the numerical results of the QCD process alone are about an order of magnitude smaller than the previous theoretical predictions. Our prediction in total is $4.2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}5}$ which is about an order of magnitude smaller than the recent CLEO measurement on the branching fraction $\mathcal{B}(\ensuremath{\Upsilon}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}J/\ensuremath{\psi}+X)$. It indicates that the $J/\ensuremath{\psi}$ production mechanism in $\ensuremath{\Upsilon}$ decay is not well understood and further theoretical work and experimental analysis are still necessary.