Erich Herzig
Papers
3
Total Citations
62
H-Index
3
About
Erich Herzig is an instrumental figure in the design and construction of robotic observatories dedicated to exoplanet discovery and characterization. His primary research areas center on high-precision radial velocity instrumentation and automated telescope arrays. Herzig’s major contributions include the development of the Miniature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA), a U.S.-based facility featuring four 0.7-meter telescopes that has garnered 37 citations for its foundational design paper. He further extended this work to the Southern Hemisphere with MINERVA-Australis, a unique facility for confirming and characterizing planets discovered by TESS, cited 21 times. Herzig also engineered an efficient fiber coupling unit for 1-meter class telescopes, detailed in a 2014 paper, which enables high-throughput automated observations. His work has been crucial in bridging the gap between transit detection and radial velocity confirmation, providing the infrastructure necessary for precise mass measurements of exoplanets orbiting bright stars. Herzig’s achievements demonstrate a rare combination of optical design, mechanical engineering, and software development, making him a key contributor to the next generation of ground-based exoplanet follow-up facilities.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Miniature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array I: design, commissioning, and early photometric results37 citations · 2015
- 2MINERVA-Australis. I. Design, Commissioning, and First Photometric Results21 citations · 2019
- 3