Shot-Noise-Limited Radial Velocity Extraction via Spectral Factorization
Published:Dec 28, 2025 18:56
•1 min read
•ArXiv
Analysis
This paper presents a novel method for extracting radial velocities from spectroscopic data, achieving high precision by factorizing the data into principal spectra and time-dependent kernels. This approach allows for the recovery of both spectral components and radial velocity shifts simultaneously, leading to improved accuracy, especially in the presence of spectral variability. The validation on synthetic and real-world datasets, including observations of HD 34411 and τ Ceti, demonstrates the method's effectiveness and its ability to reach the instrumental precision limit. The ability to detect signals with semi-amplitudes down to ~50 cm/s is a significant advancement in the field of exoplanet detection.
Key Takeaways
- •Introduces a new method for radial velocity extraction using spectral factorization.
- •Achieves high precision, reaching the instrumental limit of ~30 cm/s.
- •Enables detection of signals with semi-amplitudes down to ~50 cm/s.
- •Validated on both synthetic and real-world data, including observations of HD 34411 and τ Ceti.
- •Represents a step towards detecting and characterizing Earth-like planets.
Reference
“The method recovers coherent signals and reaches the instrumental precision limit of ~30 cm/s.”