Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Jan 2012
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21911401s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #114.01
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Kepler's primary scientific focus is an exoplanet survey, yet publications from the Kepler community are dominated in number by astrophysics. Kepler provides high-precision photometry, a 116 sq. deg. FOV, near-monatonic cadence, 3 years of continuous observing and a >92% duty cycle. Individually, none of these characteristics are unique, but collectively they are a unique and powerful resource. Fundamental questions that can and should be tackled by an open, community driven effort during mission extension are: what are the physical conditions internal and external to stars in our galactic neighborhood? How do those physical conditions drive stellar behavior? Hold old are the stars in our neighborhood? How does stellar behavior and age impact exoplanet physics and the development of ecosystems? Is the sun a typical or atypical star? What impact does this have for solar system phsics and life on Earth? Kepler's "tool kit” for answering these questions is dominated by asteroseismology, magnetic activity, gyrochronology, and binary stars.
An 8 year mission will allow Kepler to monitor complete dynamo cycles in thousands of stars. While the longer baselines and critical innovations in Kepler data analysis will combine to test how typical the sun is over timescales from a few hours to many years. It is predicted that the Kepler community will be able to age stars using rotation rate as a proxy, calibrated against the 4 open clusters of known age in the field. Longer baselines provide sensitivity to lower levels of spot activity, pushing our ability to age increasingly older stars and their planets. For asteroseismology, the size of stellar ensembles will increase, the accuracy of stellar parameters will increase. Fainter pulsations will be detectable pushing asteroseismology in the regions of hotter and cooler stars. Asteroseismology will reveal potentially stellar rotation and differential rotation within stellar interiors.
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