Origins of Solar Systems: Removing Activity-Related Radial Velocity Noise To Improve Extrasolar Planet Searches

We have continued the super high resolution (R is approximately 200,000), high S/N ((greater than) 300) echelle study of joint line bisector and radial velocity variations using the McDonald 2-D (two dimensional) coude. Observing runs in October 2000 and March 2001 were plagued by poor weather, but runs in June and October 2001 were good. We have made a preliminary analysis of the limited data in hand, and find some tantalizing evidence for correlations between median line bisector displacement and radial velocity v (sub r). The correlation appears to be specific to the particular star being considered, probably since it is a function of both spectral type and rotation rate.