Conclusions


Rachael Roettenbacher

Faculty Advisor: Robert Harmon 


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The results supplied here indicate that differential rotation occurs.  The analysis up to this point has lacked quantitative values for indicating the amount of differential rotation. 

To assign a value of latitude and longitude to the spots, the latitude and longitude of the darkest patch on each of the spots was recorded. These patches are typically found near the centers of the spots.  

The longitudes (in degrees) for the spots were plotted against time (in modified Julian Days).  The slope of these graphs, ΔLongitude/.ΔTime, indicates a rotation rate for specific latitudes.  A slope equal to zero indicates that a spot at that latitude is moving at the same rate as the average rotation of the star.  Positive slopes indicate that a spot at that latitude is moving more rapidly than the average rotation rate of the star.  Negative slopes indicate that a spot at that latitude is moving more slowly than the average rotation rate of the star. 

The data obtained from these images could not be used in their entirety.  From image to image, the darkest patch in the spot shifted latitude greatly.  Latitudes of spots are not thought to change. Because of this, a subset of data points was used.  The data sets that had a fluctuation of less than or equal to 15° over the course of the set were used in this analysis.  This was done for both angles of inclination.  The average latitude value was plotted against  ΔLongitude/ΔTime.  This analysis returned a graph with points scattered seemingly randomly. 

 

 

No conclusions based upon latitude about differential rotation could be made from these data.  Differential rotation clearly occurs on II Pegasi based upon the images and the plots of longitude against time.  Lower-latitude spots can be seen on the images moving below higher-latitude spots to pass them rotationally.  This emphasizes that the lower-latitude spots are moving faster than the average rotation rate and the higher-latitude spots are moving slower.

The determination of a specific rate based upon latitude cannot be made from these data as there is too much uncertainty as to the exact latitude of the spots.  The spots that appeared to remain at the same latitude throughout the analysis yielded no consistent rotation rates.  Certain latitudes are probably not rotating faster than the star’s average
rotation and at a later point in time rotating more slowly.  This inconsistency prevents any detailed quantitative conclusions from being drawn.  Future work will use a more robust method for measurements based on the spot centroids which will be used to estimate the
latitudes to see if this would yield better results.