Alpha Centauri, the hunt for planets.

Debra Fischer Hunts for a Second Earth at Alpha Centauri
http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2013/20130128-debra-fischer-alpha-centauri-exoplanet-search.html

Highlights from the interview with Fischer.
Upgrades to CHIRON instrumentation in Jun 2012. Precision dramatically improved with fibre optics. Standing "toe-to-toe" with HARPS team. HARPS was $10M, CHIRON was < $1M. Able to measure RV stability over two weeks is less than or about 50 cm/s. 35 cm/s nightly stability. May not be able to do much better, limited by CCD performance. Spectral lines are 4 px across, measuring variation on the order of 1/10,000th of a pixel. Fischer's team will aim for confirming Alf Cen Bb in the Spring of 2013. Rocky planets tend to come in multiplets, so additional planets are likely.

Sirius_Alpha wrote: Fischer's team will aim for confirming Alf Cen Bb in the Spring of 2013.

An indipendent confirmation of such a difficult detection will be great. On the other end we haven't seen so far any additional studies carried out on the HARPS dataset. So far no alternative analysis published confirming or rejecting the find. I wonder if it's a good or bad sign..

Implications of the spectroscopic abundances in α Centauri A and B
http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.0450

...Given the trends seen when analyzing the refractory abundances [X/Fe] with condensation temperature, we find it possible that {\alpha} Centauri A may host a yet undiscovered planet.