SOAP: simulation spot and plages' impact on radial velocities and photometry

I. Boisse, X. Bonfils, N. C. Santos, P. Figueira, U. Abbas

Abstract.
Dark spots and bright plages are present on the surface of dwarf stars from the spectral type F to M, even in their low-active phase (like the Sun). Their appearance and disappearance on the stellar photosphere, combined with the stellar rotation, may lead to errors and uncertainties in the characterization of planets both in radial velocimetry and photometry. SOAP is a tool offered to the community (Boisse et al., subm.) that enables to simulate spots and plages on rotating stars and computes their impact on RV and photometric measurements. This tool will help to understand the challenges related to the knowledge of stellar activity for the next decade: detect telluric planets in the habitable zone of their stars (from G to M dwarfs), understand the activity in the low-mass end of M dwarf (on which will focus future projects like Elektra, SPIRou or CARMENES), limitation to the sum of different transit observations in order to characterize the atmospheric components (from the ground or with Spitzer, JWST), search for planets around young stars. These can be simulated with SOAP in order to search for indices and corrections of the effect of activity.

New Quests in Stellar Astrophysics III. A Panchromatic View of Solar-like Stars, With and Without Planets
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
março 2012

Tipo: Poster