This award will support is an observational study of chromospheric activity in young solar-type stars. Dr. Gray and his students will conduct long-term spectroscopic monitoring of the chromospheric fluxes in the cores of the Ca II H & K lines, coupled with simultaneous and high-cadence multi-band photometric observations of these stars. The principal goals are to explore the timing and size of starspot cycles, discover correlations between activity levels and stellar brightness, uncover the presence and character of short-term behavior such as flare activity, and investigate the influence of Jupiter-mass planets on stellar activity levels.
The project will to provide hands-on research opportunities at an institution whose students are mainly from a rural population in an under-served region of the United States. The research will may also help improve our understanding of the Sun-earth environment at a time 3-4 billion years ago when life was gaining a foothold on our planet, and aid in the assessment of the possibility of life in other planetary systems around sun-like stars.
