Star-spots and magnetism: testing the activity paradigm in the Pleiades and M67

Abstract

ABSTRACT We measure star-spot filling fractions for 240 stars in the Pleiades and M67 open star clusters using APOGEE high-resolution H-band spectra. For this work, we developed a modified spectroscopic pipeline which solves for star-spot filling fraction and star-spot temperature contrast. We exclude binary stars, finding that the large majority of binaries in these clusters (80 per cent) can be identified from Gaia DR3 and APOGEE criteria – important for field star applications. Our data agree well with independent activity proxies, indicating that this technique recovers real star-spot signals. In the Pleiades, filling fractions saturate at a mean level of 0.248 ± 0.005 for active stars with a decline at slower rotation; we present fitting functions as a function of Rossby number. In M67, we recover low mean filling fractions of 0.030 ± 0.008 and 0.003 ± 0.002 for main sequence GK stars and evolved red giants, respectively, confirming that the technique does not produce spurious spot signals in inactive stars. Star-spots also modify the derived spectroscopic effective temperatures and convective overturn time-scales. Effective temperatures for active stars are offset from inactive ones by −109 ± 11 K, in agreement with the Pecaut & Mamajek empirical scale. Star-spot filling fractions at the level measured in active stars changes their inferred overturn time-scale, which biases the derived threshold for saturation. Finally, we identify a population of stars statistically discrepant from mean activity–Rossby relations and present evidence that these are genuine departures from a Rossby scaling. Our technique is applicable to the full APOGEE catalogue, with broad applications to stellar, galactic, and exoplanetary astrophysics.