"A Survey of Nearby Stars for Extrasolar Planets:
Towards a Galactic Census of Terrestrial Planets"

Steven Vogt
UC Santa Cruz

Abstract: This talk will give a brief overview of research over the
past 13 years involving the search for extrasolar planets around
nearby stars. We have been using the Keck/HIRES facility to obtain
observations at 1-3 m/s precision, amassing over a decade of precision
radial velocity data on more than 1200 nearby G,K, and M dwarfs. Some
of the technical challenges of reaching and maintaining 1-m/s
precision will also be reviewed. We have recently added a carefully
selected crop of ~200 intrinsically quiet nearby K, and M dwarfs, and
are searching for rocky planets in their habitable zones. Our goal is
to push the planet detection threshold down well into the terrestrial
mass regime, and, through detailed comparison with core-accretion
models, determine the occurrence frequency of terrestrial planets in
the galactic planet census.