Is this project an undergraduate, graduate, or faculty project?
Undergraduate
Project Type
individual
Campus
Daytona Beach
Authors' Class Standing
Kylie Boyer, Senior
Lead Presenter's Name
Kylie Boyer
Lead Presenter's College
DB College of Arts and Sciences
Faculty Mentor Name
Terry Oswalt
Abstract
Gyrochronology is a technique for determining the age of low-mass main-sequence stars by measuring their rotation periods. In principle, rotation is a relatively easy to observe property when spots modulate the brightness of a star. However, contamination from blended objects, instrumental biases, and gaps in observational coverage can skew the data, making rotation periods harder to determine accurately. The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), an advanced wide-field camera located in California, surveyed the entire northern sky every two days. This extensive coverage, with data collected from 2018 to late 2024, makes the ZTF an ideal resource for studying long-period stars. Of the 3,912 TESS targets assigned to our project, 807 were found to overlap with the ZTF database. TESS is limited in its ability to detect periodic variability longer than about 14 days. Multiyear light curves from ZTF provide a valuable opportunity to confirm longer rotation periods, allowing us to identify and study older stars that TESS alone cannot detect. The overarching goal is to compare and validate stellar rotation periods determined from space-based data with ground-based observations using a lomb-scargle periodogram
Did this research project receive funding support (Spark, SURF, Research Abroad, Student Internal Grants, Collaborative, Climbing, or Ignite Grants) from the Office of Undergraduate Research?
No
Ground-Based Contributions to Gyrochronology: Comparing Stellar Rotation Periods of TESS Targets with Zwicky Transient Facility
Gyrochronology is a technique for determining the age of low-mass main-sequence stars by measuring their rotation periods. In principle, rotation is a relatively easy to observe property when spots modulate the brightness of a star. However, contamination from blended objects, instrumental biases, and gaps in observational coverage can skew the data, making rotation periods harder to determine accurately. The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), an advanced wide-field camera located in California, surveyed the entire northern sky every two days. This extensive coverage, with data collected from 2018 to late 2024, makes the ZTF an ideal resource for studying long-period stars. Of the 3,912 TESS targets assigned to our project, 807 were found to overlap with the ZTF database. TESS is limited in its ability to detect periodic variability longer than about 14 days. Multiyear light curves from ZTF provide a valuable opportunity to confirm longer rotation periods, allowing us to identify and study older stars that TESS alone cannot detect. The overarching goal is to compare and validate stellar rotation periods determined from space-based data with ground-based observations using a lomb-scargle periodogram