Reconstruction of stellar surface features via matrix lightcurve inversion

Details Reconstruction of stellar surface features via matrix lightcurve inversion Reconstruction of stellar surface features via matrix lightcurve inversion

Nov 1999

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999phdt.........4h&link_type=abstract

Thesis (PhD). THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Source DAI-B 60/08, p. 4006, Feb 2000, 341 pages.

Computer Science

1

Scientific paper

Matrix Lightcurve Inversion (MLI) is a technique for deducing the surface brightness distributions of rapidly rotating spotted stars or the surface albedo distributions of planets (in particular Pluto) from their rotational lightcurves. When applied to the stellar problem it has the significant advantage over ``spot models'' that it makes no a priori assumptions about the number of spots on the stellar surface or their shapes. We demonstrate the viability of the method for determining the shapes and locations of dark spots on stellar surfaces and explore its potential and its limitations by presenting the results of inversions of synthetic lightcurves corresponding to model stars with known surface features. We show that when lightcurves acquired through different photometric filters are simultaneously inverted, significant improvements can be achieved compared to when only a single filter is used. In particular, it becomes possible to more reliably deduce the presence of high-latitude activity, presenting the possibility of corroborating Doppler images which imply high-latitude spots. We apply MLI to the inversion of V and B lightcurves of the RS CVn binary II Pegasi acquired from September 1995 to January 1996, and show that two major spots or active regions were present. Initially they were separated by almost 180° in longitude, but over time the larger spot drifted forward in longitude in the direction of rotation relative to the orbital ephemeris while the smaller spot remained nearly stationary. This may be due to differential rotation. There is evidence that the larger spot was at a higher latitude than the smaller spot, which would imply that the differential rotation has the opposite sense of that on the Sun.

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