1,720,966 research outputs found
Discriminating solar and antisolar differential rotation in high-precision light curves
No full textContext. Surface differential rotation (DR) is one major ingredient of the magnetic field generation process in the Sun and likely in other stars. The term solar-like differential rotation describes the observation that solar equatorial regions rotate faster than polar ones. The opposite effect of polar regions rotating faster than equatorial ones (termed as antisolar DR) has only been observed in a few stars, although there is evidence from theoretical dynamo models.
Aims. We present a new method of detecting the sign of DR (i.e., solar-like or antisolar DR) by analyzing long-term high-precision light curves with the Lomb-Scargle periodogram.
Methods. We compute the Lomb-Scargle periodogram and identify a set of significant periods Pk, which we associate with active regions located at different latitudes on the stellar surface. If detectable, the first harmonics (\hbox{}) of these periods were identified to compute their peak-height-ratios
rk:= h(P'k)/h(Pk)
. Spots rotating at lower latitudes generate less sine-shaped light curves, which requires additional power in the harmonics, and results in larger ratios rk. Comparing different ratios rk and the associated periods Pk yields information about the spot latitudes, and reveals the sign of DR.
Results. We tested our method on different sets of synthetic light curves all exhibiting solar-like DR. The number of cases where our method detects antisolar DR is the false-positive rate of our method. Depending on the set of light curves, the noise level, the required minimum peak separation, and the presence or absence of spot evolution, our method fails to detect the correct sign in at most 20%. We applied our method to 50 Kepler G stars and found 21–34 stars with solar-like DR and 5–10 stars with antisolar DR, depending on the minimum peak separation.
Conclusions. The method is able to determine the sign of DR in a statistical way with a low false-positive rate. Applying our method to real data might suggest that – within the uncertainties – antisolar DR was detected in 5–10 Kepler stars
Rotation, differential rotation, and gyrochronology of active Kepler stars
No full textContext. In addition to the discovery of hundreds of exoplanets, the high-precision photometry from the CoRoT and Kepler satellites has led to measurements of surface rotation periods for tens of thousands of stars, which can potentially be used to infer stellar ages via gyrochronology.
Aims. Our main goal is to derive ages of thousands of field stars using consistent rotation period measurements derived by different methods. Multiple rotation periods are interpreted as surface differential rotation (DR). We study the dependence of DR with rotation period and effective temperature.
Methods. We reanalyze a previously studied sample of 24 124 Kepler stars using different approaches based on the Lomb-Scargle periodogram. Each quarter (Q1–Q14) is treated individually using a prewhitening approach. Additionally, the full time series and their different segments are analyzed.
Results. For more than 18 500 stars our results are consistent with the rotation periods from McQuillan et al. (2014, ApJS, 211, 24). Of these, more than 12 300 stars show multiple significant peaks, which we interpret as DR. Dependencies of the DR with rotation period and effective temperature could be confirmed, e.g., the relative DR increases with rotation period. Gyrochronology ages between 100 Myr and 10 Gyr were derived for more than 17 000 stars using different gyrochronology relations, most of them with uncertainties dominated by period variations. We find a bimodal age distribution for Teff between 3200–4700 K. The derived ages reveal an empirical activity-age relation using photometric variability as stellar activity proxy. Additionally, we found 1079 stars with extremely stable (mostly short) periods. Half of these periods may be associated with rotation stabilized by non-eclipsing companions, the other half might be due to pulsations.
Conclusions. The derived gyrochronology ages are well constrained since more than ~93.0% of the stars seem to be younger than the Sun where calibration is most reliable. Explaining the bimodality in the age distribution is challenging, and limits accurate stellar age predictions. The relation between activity and age is interesting, and requires further investigation. The existence of cool stars with almost constant rotation period over more than three years of observation might be explained by synchronization with stellar companions, or a dynamo mechanism keeping the spot configurations extremely stable
Evidence for photometric activity cycles in 3203 <i>Kepler </i>stars
No full textContext. In recent years it has been claimed that the length of stellar activity cycles is determined by the stellar rotation rate. It has been observed that the cycle period increases with rotation period along two distinct sequences, known as the active and inactive sequences. In this picture the Sun occupies a solitary position between the two sequences. Whether the Sun might undergo a transitional evolutionary stage is currently under debate.
Aims. Our goal is to measure cyclic variations of the stellar light curve amplitude and the rotation period using four years of Kepler data. Periodic changes in the light curve amplitude or the stellar rotation period are associated with an underlying activity cycle.
Methods. Using a recent sample of active stars we compute the rotation period and the variability amplitude for each individual Kepler quarter and search for periodic variations of both time series. To test for periodicity in each stellar time series we consider Lomb-Scargle periodograms and use a selection based on a false alarm probability (FAP).
Results. We detect amplitude periodicities in 3203 stars between 0.5 < Pcyc < 6 yr covering rotation periods between 1 < Prot < 40 days. Given our sample size of 23 601 stars and our selection criteria that the FAP is less than 5%, this number is almost three times higher than that expected from pure noise. We do not detect periodicities in the rotation period beyond those expected from noise. Our measurements reveal that the cycle period shows a weak dependence on rotation rate, slightly increasing for longer rotation periods. We further show that the shape of the variability deviates from a pure sine curve, consistent with observations of the solar cycle. The cycle shape does not show a statistically significant dependence on effective temperature.
Conclusions. We detect activity cycles in more than 13% of our final sample with a FAP of 5% (calculated by randomly shuffling the measured 90-day variability measurements for each star). Our measurements do not support the existence of distinct sequences in the Prot−Pcyc plane, although there is some evidence for the inactive sequence for rotation periods between 5–25 days. Unfortunately, the total observing time is too short to draw sound conclusions on activity cycles with similar lengths to that of the solar cycle
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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