Abstract Details
| Name: Vatsal Panwar Affiliation: Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (Pilani Campus) Conference ID: ASI2017_1169 Title : A study of stellar magnetic activity of M dwarfs from Kepler-2 photometry Authors and Co-Authors : W.-H. Ip (Institute of Astronomy, NCU, Taiwan), H.-Y. Chang(Institute of Astronomy, NCU, Taiwan), L.-C. Huang (Institute of Astronomy, NCU, Taiwan) Abstract Type : Poster Abstract Category : Stars,ISM and the Galaxy Abstract : Magnetically active low-mass M dwarfs have recently been the subject of great interest, in context of characterization of the nature and evolution of their magnetic activity and its impact on detection and habitability of extrasolar planets orbiting them. Using photometric diagnostics of magnetic activity, we present a study of magnetic activity of a sample of bright and nearby M dwarfs observed during campaigns C0 to C7 of the Kepler Two-Wheel (Kepler-2 or K2) mission. The high-precision light curves from K2 provide a unique opportunity to study flare-statistics of M dwarfs across a range of stellar masses, spectral-types (and hence fully-convective to semi-convective interiors) and periods of rotation. We detrend the long cadence K2 light curves from the MAST archive, using a recently proposed Gaussian Processes regression based approach. By employing a classical stellar-flare identification criterion and flare energy calculation method on the detrended photometry, we calculate basic flare properties (flare energy, peak flare amplitude and flare duration) and obtain the cumulative flare-frequency distributions for the targets. We fit the energy distribution of flares with a power law and present the corresponding power law indices. For frequently flaring stars, the power law noticeably flattens towards lower energies due to incomplete detection of low energy flares. From the photometrically derived rotation periods, we also present the relation between stellar rotation and magnetic activity which shows a transition between the activity levels of slow and fast rotators. |