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Published November 2012 | Published
Journal Article Open

Keck NIRSPEC Radial Velocity Observations of Late-M Dwarfs

Abstract

We present the results of an infrared spectroscopic survey of 23 late-M dwarfs with the NIRSPEC echelle spectrometer on the Keck II telescope. Using telluric lines for wavelength calibration, we are able to achieve measurement precisions of down to 45 m s^(–1) for our late-M dwarfs over a one- to four-year long baseline. Our sample contains two stars with radial velocity (RV) variations of >1000 m s^(–1). While we require more measurements to determine whether these RV variations are due to unseen planetary or stellar companions or are the result of starspots known to plague the surface of M dwarfs, we can place upper limits of <40 M_J sin i on the masses of any companions around those two M dwarfs with RV variations of <160 m s^(–1) at orbital periods of 10-100 days. We have also measured the rotational velocities for all the stars in our late-M dwarf sample and offer our multi-order, high-resolution spectra over 2.0-2.4 μm to the atmospheric modeling community to better understand the atmospheres of late-M dwarfs.

Additional Information

© 2012 American Astronomical Society. Received 2012 July 2; accepted 2012 September 3; published 2012 November 1. This research has made use of the Keck Observatory Archive (KOA), which is operated by the W. M. Keck Observatory and the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI), under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The authors wish to recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Mauna Kea has always had within the indigenous Hawaiian community.We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. We thank the anonymous referee for their insightful comments, which improved this manuscript.

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