Spots and activity of Pleiades stars from observations with the Kepler Space Telescope (K2)

Abstract

Observations of the K2 continuation of Kepler Space Telescope program are used to estimate the spot coverage S (the fractional spotted area on the surface of an active star) for stars of the Pleiades cluster. The analysis is based on data on photometric variations of 759 confirmed clustermembers, together with their atmospheric parameters, masses, and rotation periods. The relationship between the activity (S) of these Pleiades stars and their effective temperatures shows considerable change in S for stars with temperatures T eff less than 6100 K (this can be considered the limiting value for which spot formation activity begins) and a monotonic increase in S for cooler objects (a change in the slope for stars with Teff ~ 3700 K). The scatter in this parameter ΔS about its mean dependence on the (V −Ks)0 color index remains approximately the same over the entire (V−K s )0 range, including cool, fully convective dwarfs. The computated S values do not indicate differences between slowly rotating and rapidly rotating stars with color indices 1.1 < (V−K s )0 < 3.7. The main results of this study include measurements of the activity of a large number of stars having the same age (759 members of the Pleiades cluster), resulting in the first determination of the relationship between the spot-forming activity and masses of stars. For 27 stars with masses differing from the solarmass by nomore than 0.1M⊙, themean spot coverage is S = 0.031±0.003, suggesting that the activity of candidate young Suns is more pronounced than that of the present-day Sun. These stars rotate considerably faster than the Sun, with an average rotation period of 4.3d. The results of this study of cool, low-mass dwarfs of the Pleiades cluster are compared to results from an earlier study of 1570 M stars.