Gaia DR2 provides unprecedented precision in measurements of the distance and kinematics of stars in the solar neighborhood. Through applying unsupervised machine learning on DR2's 5D data set (3D ...position + 2D velocity), we identify a number of clusters, associations, and comoving groups within 1 kpc and (many of which have not been previously known). We estimate their ages with the precision of ∼0.15 dex. Many of these groups appear to be filamentary or string-like, oriented in parallel to the Galactic plane, and some span hundreds of parsec in length. Most of these string lack a central cluster, indicating that their filamentary structure is primordial, rather than the result of tidal stripping or dynamical processing. The youngest strings (<100 Myr) are orthogonal to the Local Arm. The older ones appear to be remnants of several other arm-like structures that cannot be presently traced by dust and gas. The velocity dispersion measured from the ensemble of groups and strings increase with age, suggesting a timescale for dynamical heating of ∼300 Myr. This timescale is also consistent with the age at which the population of strings begins to decline, while the population in more compact groups continues to increase, suggesting that dynamical processes are disrupting the weakly bound string populations, leaving only individual clusters to be identified at the oldest ages. These data shed a new light on the local galactic structure and a large-scale cloud collapse.
We present the results of the hierarchical clustering analysis of the Gaia DR2 data to search for clusters, comoving groups, and other stellar structures. The current paper builds on the sample from ...the previous work, extending it in distance from 1 to 3 kpc and increasing the number of identified structures up to 8292. To aid in the analysis of the population properties, we developed a neural network called Auriga to robustly estimate the age, extinction, and distance of a stellar group based on the input photometry and parallaxes of the individual members. We apply Auriga to derive the properties of not only the structures found in this paper, but also previously identified open clusters. Through this work, we examine the temporal structure of the spiral arms. Specifically, we find that the Sagittarius Arm has moved by >500 pc in the last 100 Myr and the Perseus Arm has been experiencing a relative lull in star formation activity over the last 25 Myr. We confirm the findings of the previous paper on the transient nature of the spiral arms, with the timescale of transition of a few 100 Myr. Finally, we find a peculiar ∼1 Gyr old stream of stars that appears to be heliocentric. Its origin is unclear.
Detection of transiting exoplanets around young stars is more difficult than for older systems owing to increased stellar variability. Nine young open cluster planets have been found in the K2 data, ...but no single analysis pipeline identified all planets. We have developed a transit search pipeline for young stars that uses a transit-shaped notch and quadratic continuum in a 12 or 24 hr window to fit both the stellar variability and the presence of a transit. In addition, for the most rapid rotators ( days) we model the variability using a linear combination of observed rotations of each star. To maximally exploit our new pipeline, we update the membership for four stellar populations observed by K2 (Upper Scorpius, Pleiades, Hyades, Praesepe) and conduct a uniform search of the members. We identify all known transiting exoplanets in the clusters, 17 eclipsing binaries, one transiting planet candidate orbiting a potential Pleiades member, and three orbiting unlikely members of the young clusters. Limited injection recovery testing on the known planet hosts indicates that for the older Praesepe systems we are sensitive to additional exoplanets as small as 1-2 R⊕, and for the larger Upper Scorpius planet host (K2-33) our pipeline is sensitive to ∼4 R⊕ transiting planets. The lack of detected multiple systems in the young clusters is consistent with the expected frequency from the original Kepler sample, within our detection limits. With a robust pipeline that detects all known planets in the young clusters, occurrence rate testing at young ages is now possible.
Abstract
We analyze light curves of 284,834 unique K2 targets using a Gaussian process model with a quasi-periodic kernel function. By cross-matching K2 stars to observations from Gaia Data Release ...2, we have identified 69,627 likely main-sequence stars. From these we select a subsample of 8977 stars on the main sequence with highly precise rotation period measurements. With this sample we recover the gap in the rotation period−color diagram first reported by McQuillan et al. While the gap was tentatively detected in Reinhold & Hekker, this work represents the first robust detection of the gap in K2 data for field stars. This is significant because K2 observed along many lines of sight at wide angular separation, in contrast to Kepler’s single line of sight. Together with recent results for rotation in open clusters, we interpret this gap as evidence for a departure from the
t
−1/2
Skumanich spin-down law, rather than an indication of a bimodal star formation history. We provide maximum likelihood estimates and uncertainties for all parameters of the quasi-periodic light-curve model for each of the 284,834 stars in our sample.
We present K-band spectra for 133 nearby (d < 33 ps) M dwarfs, including 18 M dwarfs with reliable metallicity estimates (as inferred from an FGK type companion), 11 M dwarf planet hosts, more than ...2/3 of the M dwarfs in the northern 8 pc sample, and several M dwarfs from the LSPM catalog. From these spectra, we measure equivalent widths of the Ca and Na lines, and a spectral index quantifying the absorption due to H sub(2)O opacity (the H sub(2)O-K2 index). Using empirical spectral type standards and synthetic models, we calibrate the H sub(2)O-K2 index as an indicator of an M dwarf's spectral type and effective temperature. We also present a revised relationship that estimates the Fe/H and M/H metallicities of M dwarfs from their Na I, Ca I, and H sub(2)O-K2 measurements. Comparisons to model atmosphere provide a qualitative validation of our approach, but also reveal an overall offset between the atomic line strengths predicted by models as compared to actual observations. Our metallicity estimates also reproduce expected correlations with Galactic space motions and H alpha emission line strengths, and return statistically identical metallicities for M dwarfs within a common multiple system. Finally, we find systematic residuals between our H sub(2)O-based spectral types and those derived from optical spectral features with previously known sensitivity to stellar metallicity, such as TiO, and identify the CaH1 index as a promising optical index for diagnosing the metallicities of near-solar M dwarfs.
We have matched the astrometric data from Gaia Data Release 2 to the sample of stars with measured rotation periods from Kepler. Using 30,305 stars with good distance estimates, we select 16,248 as ...being likely main-sequence single stars centered within a 0.5 mag region about a 1 Gyr isochrone, removing many subgiants and unresolved binary stars from the sample. The rotation period bimodality, originally discovered by McQuillan et al., is clearly recovered for stars out to 525 pc, but is not detectable at farther distances. We find the bimodality is clearly recovered for stars out to 525 pc, but is not detectable at farther distances. We find the bimodality is correlated with height above the Galacitc plane, with the ratio of rapidly rotating younger stars dropping strongly for stars above Z > 90 pc. We also find a significant width in the stellar main sequence of ΔMG ∼ 0.25 mag, as well as a coherent gradient of increasing rotation periods orthogonal to the main sequence. We interpret this as a signature of stellar angular momentum loss over time, implying a corresponding diagonal age gradient across the main sequence. Stellar evolution models predict changes in color and luminosity that are consistent in amplitude, but not in direction, with those required to produce the gradient we have detected. This rotation gradient may indicate that main-sequence evolution produces offsets in color-magnitude space that are significantly more orthogonal to the zero-age main sequence than models currently predict, and may provide new tests for both stellar evolution and gyrochronology models.
Using a recent census of flare stars from the Kepler survey, we have explored how flare activity evolves across stellar main-sequence lifetimes. We utilize a sample of 347 stars with robust flare ...activity detections and which have rotation periods measured via starspot modulations in their Kepler light curves. We consider three separate methods for quantifying flare activity from optical light curves and compare their utility for comparing flare activity between stars of differing ages and luminosities. These metrics include the fractional luminosity emitted in flares, the specific rate of flares emitted at a given energy, and a model for the entire flare frequency distribution (FFD). With all three approaches, we find that flare activity decreases for all low-mass stars as they spin down, and thus with age. Most striking is the evolution of the flare occurrence frequency distributions, which show no significant change in the power-law slope with age. Since our sample is preferentially constructed of younger, more active stars, our model overpredicts the superflare rate previously estimated for the Sun. Finally, we parameterize our best-fit model of the FFD for ease in predicting the rates of flares and their associated impacts on planet habitability and detection.
ABSTRACT We present the results of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey APOGEE INfrared Spectroscopy of Young Nebulous Clusters program (IN-SYNC) survey of the Orion A molecular cloud. This survey obtained ...high-resolution near-infrared spectroscopy of about 2700 young pre-main-sequence stars on a field of view. We have measured accurate stellar parameters ( , , ) and extinctions and placed the sources in the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram (HRD). We have also extracted radial velocities for the kinematic characterization of the population. We compare our measurements with literature results to assess the performance and accuracy of the survey. Source extinction shows evidence for dust grains that are larger than those in the diffuse interstellar medium: we estimate an average RV = 5.5 in the region. Importantly, we find a clear correlation between HRD inferred ages and spectroscopic surface-gravity-inferred ages and between extinction and disk presence; this strongly suggests a real spread of ages larger than a few Myr. Focusing on the young population around NGC 1980/ Ori, which has previously been suggested to be a separate, foreground, older cluster, we confirm its older (∼5 Myr) age and low AV, but considering that its radial velocity distribution is indistinguishable from Orion A's population, we suggest that NGC 1980 is part of Orion A's star formation activity. Based on their stellar parameters and kinematic properties, we identify 383 new candidate members of Orion A, most of which are diskless sources in areas of the region poorly studied by previous works.
Recent measurements of rotation periods ( ) in the benchmark open clusters Praesepe (670 Myr), NGC 6811 (1 Gyr), and NGC 752 (1.4 Gyr) demonstrate that, after converging onto a tight sequence of ...slowly rotating stars in mass-period space, stars temporarily stop spinning down. These data also show that the duration of this epoch of stalled spin-down increases toward lower masses. To determine when stalled stars resume spinning down, we use data from the K2 mission and the Palomar Transient Factory to measure for 58 dwarf members of the 2.7 Gyr old cluster Ruprecht 147, 39 of which satisfy our criteria designed to remove short-period or near-equal-mass binaries. Combined with the Kepler data for the approximately coeval cluster NGC 6819 (30 stars with M > 0.85 ), our new measurements more than double the number of 2.5 Gyr benchmark rotators and extend this sample down to 0.55 . The slowly rotating sequence for this joint sample appears relatively flat (22 2 days) compared to sequences for younger clusters. This sequence also intersects the Kepler intermediate-period gap, demonstrating that this gap was not created by a lull in star formation. We calculate the time at which stars resume spinning down and find that 0.55 stars remain stalled for at least 1.3 Gyr. To accurately age-date low-mass stars in the field, gyrochronology formulae must be modified to account for this stalling timescale. Empirically tuning a core-envelope coupling model with open cluster data can account for most of the apparent stalling effect. However, alternative explanations, e.g., a temporary reduction in the magnetic braking torque, cannot yet be ruled out.
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