Article

The Monitor project: rotation periods of low-mass stars in M50

Jonathan IrwinHarvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USAS. AigrainAstrophysics Group, School of Physics, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter EX4 4QLJ. BouvierLaboratoire d'Astrophysique, Observatoire de Grenoble, BP 53, F-38041 Grenoble Cédex 9, FranceLeslie HebbSchool of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews KY16 9SSS. T. HodgkinInstitute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HAMike IrwinInstitute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HAE. MorauxLaboratoire d'Astrophysique, Observatoire de Grenoble, BP 53, F-38041 Grenoble Cédex 9, France

2008en

ABI

Abstract

We report on the results of a time-series photometric survey of M50 (NGC 2323), a 130 Myr open cluster, carried out using the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) 4-m Blanco telescope and Mosaic-II detector as part of the Monitor project. Rotation periods were derived for 812 candidate cluster members over the mass range 0.2 M/M 1.1. The rotation period distributions show a clear mass-dependent morphology, statistically indistinguishable from those in NGC 2516 and M35 taken from the literature. Due to the availability of data from three observing runs separated by 10 and 1 month time-scales, we are able to demonstrate clear evidence for evolution of the photometric amplitudes, and hence spot patterns, over the 10 month gap. We are not able to constrain the time-scales for these effects in detail due to limitations imposed by the large gaps in our sampling, which also prevent the use of the phase information.

Identifiers

DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2008.14158.x

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Cited by 10 references

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