Rotation periods of 12 000 main-sequence Kepler stars: Dependence on stellar spectral type and comparison with v sin i observations

By M. Nielsen, Laurent Gizon, H. Schunker, Christoffer Karoff. 2013

187 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Aims. We aim to measure the starspot rotation periods of active stars in the Kepler field as a function of spectral type and to extend reliable rotation measurements from F-, G-, and K-type to M-type stars. Methods. Using the Lomb-Scargle periodogram we searched more than 150 000 stellar light curves for periodic brightness variations. We analyzed periods between 1 and 30 days in eight consecutive Kepler quarters, where 30 days is an estimated maximum for the validity of the PDC_MAP data correction pipeline. We selected stable rotation periods, i.e., periods that do not vary from the median by more than one day in at least six of the eight quarters. We averaged the periods for each stellar spectral class according to B−V color and compared the results to archival v sini data, using stellar radii estimates from the Kepler Input Catalog. Results. We report on the stable starspot rotation periods of 12 151 Kepler stars. We find good agreement between starspot velocities and v sini data for all F-, G- and early K-type stars. The 795 M-type stars in our sample have a median rotation period of 15. 4d ays. We find an excess of M-type stars with periods less than 7.5 days that are potentially fast-rotating and fully convective. Measuring photometric variability in multiple Kepler quarters appears to be a straightforward and reliable way to determine the rotation periods of a large sample of active stars, including late-type stars.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0afe353efb9d95bcca712124089e311508750afc

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Laurent Gizon
2. Suzanne Aigrain
3. A. Reiners
4. T. Reinhold
5. T. Mazeh
6. A. McQuillan
7. W. Chaplin
8. G. Basri

In Instrumentation

1. Suzanne Aigrain
2. T. Reinhold
3. Laurent Gizon
4. A. McQuillan
5. T. Mazeh
6. Martin Asplund
7. W. Chaplin
8. G. Basri

Citations in the corpus

• ROTATION PERIODS OF 34,030 KEPLER MAIN-SEQUENCE STARS: THE FULL AUTOCORRELATION SAMPLE (2014, methodology): “To directly compare our periods with those detected by Reinhold et al. (2013) and Nielsen et al. (2013), for the stars where both methods report periods, we plotted their periods versus ours in Figure 7.”
• Rotation and magnetism of Kepler pulsating solar-like stars : Towards asteroseismically calibrated age-rotation relations (2014, methodology): “…provides a measurement of the surface velocity at the latitudes of the spots (e.g. García et al. 2009; Ballot et al. 2011; McQuillan et al. 2013a; Nielsen et al. 2013), which can also lead to a determination of the surface differential rotation (e.g. Barban et al. 2009; Mosser et al. 2009b;…”
• ANGULAR MOMENTUM TRANSPORT WITHIN EVOLVED LOW-MASS STARS (2014, background): “The models are initially rigidly rotating at the ZAMS with a surface velocity of 50 km s−1, a typical value for stars in this mass range (Nielsen et al. 2013).”
• Rotation and differential rotation of active Kepler stars (2013, background): “The huge peak around zero shows that our periods are consistent with the periods derived in Nielsen et al. (2013), which were derived from analyzing multiple Kepler quarters.”
• STELLAR ROTATION PERIODS OF THE KEPLER OBJECTS OF INTEREST: A DEARTH OF CLOSE-IN PLANETS AROUND FAST ROTATORS (2013, background): “Kepler’s almost uninterrupted sub-mmag precision time series photometry allows for the derivation of precise orbital parameters from transit fitting, and stellar rotation measurements from star spot modulation (e.g. Basri et al. 2011; Meibom et al. 2011; Nielsen et al. 2013).”
• Rotation, differential rotation, and gyrochronology of active Kepler stars (2015, background): “…of stellar rotation periods have become numerous in recent years, unprecedented in their number and accuracy (Meibom et al. 2011a; Affer et al. 2012; McQuillan et al. 2013a; Nielsen et al. 2013; McQuillan et al. 2013b; Walkowicz & Basri 2013; Reinhold et al. 2013; McQuillan et al. 2014).”
• Improvements to stellar structure models, based on a grid of 3D convection simulations. II. Calibrating the mixing-length formulation (2014, background): “M Kepler targets by Nielsen et al. (2013) and of 34 000 Kepler main-sequence targets cooler than 6 500K by McQuillan, Mazeh & Aigrain (2014) with periods down to 0.2 days.”
• A Gaussian process framework for modelling stellar activity signals in radial velocity data (2015, background): “The associated time-scales are linked to the rotation period of the star, which can range from several hours to days or even weeks, as is the case for the Sun (Tassoul 2000; Nielsen et al. 2013).”