AN EAST-ASIAN EXTRA-SOLAR PLANET SEARCH NETWORK

AN EAST-ASIAN EXTRA-SOLAR PLANET SEARCH NETWORK

We are undertaking an extra-solar planet search around G-type giant stars by means of Doppler technique using an iodine absorption cell installed to the high dispersion echelle spectrograph for the 188 cm reflector at Okayama Astrophysical Observatory (Okayama Planet Search Program, OPSP). Having detected the first planet candidate (Sato et al. 2003)the search has been proved very promising. Taking advantage of this success, we are trying to develop OPSP to an international collaborative work. We here report the current status of our efforts for establishing such collaborations, namely, those with Chinese and Korean astronomers. We also propose to establish an East-Asian network to search for extra-solar planets around G-type giant stars with the transit detecting technique as well as the Doppler technique, asking other persons/groups to join us to enjoy the planet search.