2022-09-14

stellar noise as a physical process

Today I was privileged to be part of a great and productive meeting between Jesse Cisewski (Wisconsin), Megan Bedell (Flatiron), and Lily Zhao (Flatiron) about noise sources in extreme-precision radial-velocity measurements. The conversation was inspired by the realization (obvious, really) that any physical effect on the surface of stars (spots, plages, convection pattern, p-modes, flares) that affect the radial-velocity measurement must (unless the Universe is truly adversarial) leave other imprints on the spectrum at the same signal-to-noise or even higher signal-to-noise. This means that any claim that RV measurements are affected by spots (say) should be backed up by an observation in the spectrum that is orthogonal to the RV signal that supports the claim. We discussed relevant research and decided to jointly read this paper before our next meeting!

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