Harnessing the Power of NASA's Kepler Mission for Understanding Stellar Activity and Enhancing Planet Discovery

Details Harnessing the Power of NASA's Kepler Mission for Understanding Stellar Activity and Enhancing Planet Discovery Harnessing the Power of NASA's Kepler Mission for Understanding Stellar Activity and Enhancing Planet Discovery

Jan 2012

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21934504b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #345.04

Physics

Scientific paper

The magnetic activity of stars, which often manifests itself in the form of starspots, can induce short-timescale photometric variability, thereby adding to the difficulty of detecting planets, particularly those in the Earth mass range. Indeed, photometric "noise” caused by stellar magnetic activity can preclude the detection of the tiny transit signature that a planet like ours would produce. Hence, in order to successfully detect Earth-like planets via the transit method, the exoplanet community needs a way characterize the photometric stability of a star in advance. The goal of our project is to empirically relate chromospheric activity and photometric variability for a large sample of stars, spanning a range of stellar masses and evolutionary states, in order to develop an index that is predictive of stellar photometric variability. The inclusion of stars with a range of known rotation periods, as well as subgiants, giants, and Kepler asteroseismology targets, will allow us to more finely examine the relationship between a star's age and its magnetic activity. This work will aid in a fundamental understanding of the physics of magnetic activity in solar-type stars. We acknowledge support through NSF PAARE grant AST-0849736.

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