Kepler study of starspot lifetimes Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Giles H.A.C.
  2. Collier Cameron A.
  3. Haywood R.D.
  4. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

Wide-field high-precision photometric surveys such as Kepler have produced reams of data suitable for investigating stellar magnetic activity of cooler stars. Starspot activity produces quasi-sinusoidal light curves whose phase and amplitude vary as active regions grow and decay over time. Here we investigate, first, whether there is a correlation between the size of starspots - assumed to be related to the amplitude of the sinusoid - and their decay time-scale and, secondly, whether any such correlation depends on the stellar effective temperature. To determine this, we computed the auto-correlation functions of the light curves of samples of stars from Kepler and fitted them with apodised periodic functions. The light-curve amplitudes, representing spot size, were measured from the root-mean-squared scatter of the normalized light curves. We used a Monte Carlo Markov Chain to measure the periods and decay time-scales of the light curves. The results show a correlation between the decay time of starspots and their inferred size. The decay time also depends strongly on the temperature of the star. Cooler stars have spots that last much longer, in particular for stars with longer rotational periods. This is consistent with current theories of diffusive mechanisms causing starspot decay. We also find that the Sun is not unusually quiet for its spectral type - stars with solar-type rotation periods and temperatures tend to have (comparatively) smaller starspots than stars with mid-G or later spectral types.

Keywords
  1. Variable stars
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2017MNRAS.472.1618G
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/MNRAS/472/1618
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/472/1618
Document Object Identifer DOI

Access

Web browser access HTML
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/MNRAS/472/1618
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/MNRAS/472/1618
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/MNRAS/472/1618
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http://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tap
Run SQL-like queries with TAP-enabled clients (e.g., TOPCAT).
IVOA Cone Search SCS
For use with a cone search client (e.g., TOPCAT).
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/472/1618/table?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/472/1618/table?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/472/1618/table?

History

2020-08-11T09:52:22Z
Resource record created
2020-08-11T09:52:22Z
Created
2021-03-26T13:30:08Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr