Arts & Sciences Events
[PAST EVENT] Physics Colloquium - Dr. Luisa Rebull
Location
ZoomAccess & Features
- Open to the public
Dr. Luisa Rebull - Caltech/IPAC, Title of Talk: Stellar Rotation in Young Clusters using K2 and TESS
Zoom Link available upon request. Please email Ellie at [[evwilk]].
Abstract: K2 has provided a phenomenal opportunity to study properties of stars in clusters, particularly young low-mass stars, far beyond the expectations of the original Kepler mission. The high-precision photometry provided by K2 allows us to probe stellar variability to lower masses and lower amplitudes than has ever been done before. Younger stars are generally more rapidly rotating and have larger star spots than older stars of similar masses, so spots rotating into and out of view reveal the (surface) rotation rate of these stars. K2 has monitored stars from several clusters, most notably Rho Oph (~1 Myr), Taurus (~5 Myr), USco (~20 Myr), the Pleiades (~125 Myr), and Praesepe (~700 Myr). The light curves have yielded thousands of rotation rates, and revealed far greater diversity in light curves than was anticipated. Now that we have TESS data as well, we can add the Upper Centaurus-Lupus (UCL) and Lower Centaurus-Crux (LCC) young moving groups (~15 Myr). In this talk, I will review the K2 results and present early results from UCL/LCC.