A survey for variable young stars with small telescopes - III. Warm spots on the active star V1598 Cyg
Abstract
Magnetic spots on low-mass stars can be traced and characterized using multiband photometric light curves. Here, we analyse an extensive dataset for one active star, V1598 Cyg, a known variable K dwarf which is either pre-main sequence and/or in a close binary system. Our light curve contains 2854 photometric data points, mostly in V, Rc,Ic, but also in U, B, and Hα, with a total baseline of about 4 yr, obtained with small telescopes as part of the HOYS project. We find that V1598 Cyg is a very fast rotator with a period of 0.8246 d and varying amplitudes in all filters, best explained as a signature of strong magnetic activity and spots. We fit the photometric amplitudes inV, Rc, Ic and use them to estimate spot properties, using a grid-based method that is also propagating uncertainties. We verify the method on a partial data set with high cadence and all five broad-band filters. The method yields spot temperatures and fractional spot coverage with typical uncertainties of100 K and 3-4 per cent, respectively. V1598 Cyg consistently exhibits spots that are a few hundred degrees warmer than the photosphere, most likely indicating that the light curve is dominated by chromospheric plage. The spot activity varies over our observing baseline, with a typical time-scale of 0.5-1 yr, which we interpret as the typical spot lifetime. Combining our light curve with archival data, we find a six year cycle in the average brightness, that is probably a sign of a magnetic activity cycle.
Citation
Froebrich , D , Scholz , A , Eislöffel , J & Stecklum , B 2020 , ' A survey for variable young stars with small telescopes - III. Warm spots on the active star V1598 Cyg ' , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , vol. 497 , no. 4 , pp. 4602-4613 . https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa2275
Publication
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0035-8711Type
Journal article
Description
Funding: AS acknowledges support through STFC grant ST/R000824/1.Collections
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