Developing an Open Source Predictive Spot Model for Use in Brown Dwarf Photometry
Date
2015-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
When studying ultracool stars such as brown dwarfs some of the most infor-
mative data comes photometric observations. These observations, though limited in
its accuracy due to the limitations of the collector, provide insight into features of
the atmosphere that produce
uctuations in the light curve. It is commonly thought
that the
uctuations are caused by traditional spots in the star's atmosphere, though
analyzing the data can be di cult due to the sometimes sporadic data. This paper
seeks to create an open source program which can analyze this photometric data and
provide suggestions as to the structure of the spot to produce such a curve. It will
also look at the typical features of spots and determine if the features that are seen
on these stars are actually consistent with these features or if it some new phenomena
such as clouds or other weather related structures.
Description
Keywords
Physics, Research Subject Categories::NATURAL SCIENCES::Physics::Astronomy and astrophysics::Astronomy