Programme Goal: Detection of Extrasolar Planetary Companions to Southern Solar-Type Stars
Telescope Time Allocation: 150-200 nights per year
Stellar Sample:
>1650 Dwarfs of the Solar Neighbourhood
Selected from HIPPARCOS parallaxes
Target Spectral Types: from F8V to M0V (Evolved Stars removed using a HIPPARCOS Hertzsprung-Russel Diagram)
Colour-dependent Volume Limitation (up to 50 pc for G0V Stars, up to ~25 pc for K5V Stars)
Telescope: 1.2m "Leonard Euler" Swiss Telescope at ESO-La Silla Observatory (Chile)
Instrument: CORALIE mounted on the Nasmyth focus
Echelle Fiber-fed Spectrograph
Spectral Resolving Power: ~50000
Wavelength Coverage: 3900-6800 Angstroem
Detector: EEV CCD 2048x2048 15-micron Pixels
Simultaneous Thorium-Argon Referencing
On-line Data Reduction Software
Achieved Precision: 3 m/s (Queloz et al. 2001, The Messenger 105, 1)
History
Winter 1997/1998 - May 1998: Installation of the 1.2m "Leonard Euler" Swiss Telescope at ESO-La Silla Observatory (Chile)
May 1998: CORALIE first Light
June 1998: First Extrasolar Planet Detection involving CORALIE: GJ 876 b
November the 24th 1998: The first CORALIE Extrasolar Planetary Candidate: GJ 86
February 1999: The 2nd Planetary Candidate Detected with CORALIE: HD 75289--A Hot Jupiter
September the 4th 1999: HD 130322--CORALIE third Planetary Candidate
September the 28th: HD 192263--The fourth Candidate. Announcement during the 11th Cambridge Workshop on "Cool Stars, Stellar Systems and the Sun", Tenerife
November 1999: HD 209458: A transiting Hot Jupiter
January the 25th 2000: Announcement of a Planetary Candidate around GJ 3021 a Young and Active G Dwarf. Announcement during the "Disks, Planetesimals and Planets" Conference, Tenerife
August the 7th 2001: the Second Planet orbiting HD 83443 is announced together with 4 other New CORALIE Planetary Candidates (around HD 6434, HD 19994, HD 92788, HD 121504). We also announced the detection of a low-mass Brown Dwarf orbiting HD 168443, a Star already known to host a Massive Planetary Candidate. All these Candidates were announced during the IAU General Assembly, Manchester
April the 4th 2001: 4 New Extrasolar Planets detected with CORALIE: the second Planet around HD 82943, a Planet on an Earth-like Orbit around HD 28185 and the companions to HD 141937 and HD 213240
June the 19th 2002: 5 Detections announced during the "Scientific Frontiers in Research on Extrasolar Planets" in Washington, D.C.: planetary companions to HD 114386, HD 147513 and HD 223084 (planet in binary); Independant discoveries of HD 196050 b and HD 216437 b.
January the 22nd 2003: Combined FEROS & CORALIE measurements reveal the presence of a planet orbiting the giant star HD 47536 (ESO Press release 03/03)
April the 14th 2003: A new hot Jupiter detected with CORALIE: HD 73256 b
