Poster Abstracts

Name/Affiliation:  James Neff (National Science Foundation & College of Charleston)

Title:  Constant Stars in the Kepler Database

Abstract:
We have monitored hundreds of stars at 30-minute cadence as part of a multi-year Kepler Guest Observer program. The sample was chosen largely by their GALEX colors, so we anticipated that the sample would contain a large number of spotted stars. In fact, the sample also contained pulsating A and F stars, pulsating red giants, and a substantial fraction of stars that showed no variability at all on any timescale. Visual inspection of the light curves alone generally is not adequate to determine the cause or even the level of variability, so we developed sophisticated tools to automatically classify stars using various windowing and power spectrum tests. We present preliminary results regarding the characteristics of the constant stars and address the question whether they are very low-activity stars, stars in Maunder minima, or high-activity stars saturated with activity.