Poster Abstracts

Name/Affiliation:  Andreas Quirrenbach (Landessternwarte Heidelberg)

Title:  CARMENES

Abstract:
CARMENES is a next-generation radial-velocity instrument under construction for the 3.5m telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory by a consortium of eleven Spanish and German institutions. It consists of two separate échelle spectrographs covering the wavelength range from 0.55 to 1.7 µm at a spectral resolution of R = 82,000, fed by fibers from the Cassegrain focus of the telescope. CARMENES passed its final design review in February 2013. We discuss critical design decisions, present the final design, and report on the ongoing MAIV phase of the project. CARMENES will conduct a radial-velocity survey of 300 M dwarfs with a precision sufficient for detecting Earth-like planets in their habitable zones. A data base of M stars (dubbed CARMENCITA) has been compiled from which the CARMENES sample can be selected. CARMENCITA contains information on all relevant properties of the potential targets. Dedicated imaging, photometric, and spectroscopic observations are underway to provide crucial data on these stars that is not available in the literature.