RVxTESS and RVxK2 are simultaneous radial velocity observing programs with TESS (starting July 2018) and Kepler/K2 Campaign 16 (December 7, 2017 – February 25, 2018), respectively. The team is led by Dr. Sharon Xuesong Wang at Carnegie DTM, with team members across the world. Participating telescopes and instruments including Magellan/PFS, Keck/HIRES, APF, IRTF/iSHELL, SONG, MINERVA, and PARAS. We welcome new collaborations any time!
Why the name?
RVx = RV times. “x” emphasizes the simultaneity of the RVs and TESS/Kepler photometry in time. It is a silent “x” in RVxK2 or RVxTESS though, for simplicity: it’s pronounced “RV K2” and “RV TESS”. The whole group or the entire project is sometimes referred to as the “RVx” (“RV times”) collaboration or project.
Latest update:
December 2019: We are awarded 3.7 nights on NEID in 2020A! Due to a delay in the commissioning, our 2019B NEID program could not be executed. Therefore, we will resume our RVxTESS program on active M dwarfs in 2020A! We are still taking data with CFHT/SPIRou for 2019B, and we have finished our IRTF/iSHELL program. Please stay tuned for results.
September 2019: We are observing a few active M dwarfs with the newly online SPIRou at CFHT and also iSHELL on IRTF! The NIR RVs coupled with spectropolarimetry provided by SPIRou will inform us about the signatures of the magnetic fields of these active M dwarfs and how they are linked to stellar jitter in RVs. If commissioning of NEID goes well, we will have exquisite optical spectra and RVs as well.
August 2019: We are observing two relatively quiet Sun-like stars simultaneously with TESS and APF (PI: Howard Isaacson)! These two stars are at the opposite phase of their long term magnetic cycles, and it would be very interesting to see how they might behave similarly or differently.
March 2019: We are moving on to our second phase or RVxTESS! After a successful splinter meeting at the Kepler Science Conference V, a group of us are proposing for CFHT time to use SPIRou to observe active M dwarfs simultaneously with TESS. This is a collaboration led by three PIs from three different countries (and three proposals): Junbo Zhang (NAOC), Claire Moutou (CFHT), and Ryan Cloutier (University of Toronto).
July/August 2018: RVxTESS is happening! We are observing HD 6793 (giant) and HD 5562 (subgiant) simultaneously with Magellan Planet Finder Spectrograph (PFS) during TESS sector 1 and 2.
March 2018, RVxK2: We have concluded our RVxK2 runs! Our Keck/HIRES high cadence nights were terribly snowed out, unfortunately, but we have successfully gather data on HIP 44072 and HD 76445 for a few hours. Please stay tuned for science results and data release! Our target list and telescope coverage is available here.
Our team:
If you would like to join us, please read and agree to our collaboration agreement and email Sharon your intent to join: bit.ly/rvxagree
We have now begun our RVxTESS observations! Here’s a list of our RVxTESS team members (in a completely random order):
General: Jason Wright, Jacob Luhn (Penn State), Elisabeth Newton (MIT), Heather Cegla (Geneva Obs), Andrew Vanderbug (UT Austin), Dan Huber (University of Hawaii/IfA), Tim Bedding (University of Sydney).
The Chinese RV team (using CFHT/SPIRou): Junbo Zhang, Huijuan Wang, Yujuan Liu (NAOC).
Members from the CFHT/SPIRou science team: Claire Moutou (CFHT), Ryan Cloutier (University of Toronto/Harvard CfA), Julien Morin (University of Montpellier), Jason Rowe (Bishops University), Neil Cook (Université de Montréal).
The PFS team, including Johanna Teske (Carnegie Obs/DTM), Steve Shectman, Ian Thompson, Jeff Crane (Carnegie Obs), Paul Butler (Carnegie DTM), Jennifer Burt (MIT).
The Keck/HIRES team, including Andrew Howard (Caltech), Howard Isaacson (UC Berkeley).
The MINERVA team, including John Johnson, Jason Eastman, Amber Medina (Harvard/CfA).
Lick/APF team, including, Courtney Dressing (UC Berkeley), Paul Robertson (UC Irvine), Stephen Kane (UC Riverside), Brad Holden (UCSC).
The IRTF/iSHELL team, Peter Plavchan, Bryson Cale (George Mason Univ.), Angelle Tanner (Mississippi State Univ.), Jonathan Gagné (Carnegie DTM), Michael Gully-Santiago (NASA Ames).
Our RVxK2 team include: Jason Wright , John Johnson, Fabienne Bastien, Jacob Luhn, Jennifer Burt, Elisabeth Newton, Jason Eastman, Johanna Teske, Heather Cegla, Peter Plavchan, Angelle Tanner, Jonathan Gagné, Andrew Vanderburg, Courtney Dressing, Paul Robertson, Stephen Kane, Abhijit Chakraborty, Frank Grundahl, Bryson Cale, Brad Holden, Howard Isaacson, Andrew Howard, and Paul Butler.
RVxTESS & RVxK2 