A Large Sample of Photometric Rotation Periods for FGK Pleiades Stars

TL;DR

This study measures rotation periods for 368 Pleiades stars using HATNet data, significantly expanding the sample and providing insights into stellar rotation and angular momentum evolution in young clusters.

Contribution

It presents a large, new dataset of photometric rotation periods for Pleiades stars, including 14 new probable members, and compares these with spectroscopic data to explore stellar rotation properties.

Findings

High detection rate of periodic variability among Pleiades stars.

Rotation periods and vsini data are consistent with isotropic rotation axes for M > 0.85 Msun.

Evidence of spin-down stall at ~100 Myr for certain low-mass stars.

Abstract

Using data from the HATNet survey for transiting exoplanets we measure photometric rotation periods for 368 Pleiades stars with 0.4 Msun < M < 1.3 Msun. We detect periodic variability for 74% of the cluster members in this mass range that are within our field-of-view, and 93% of the members with 0.7 Msun < M < 1.0 Msun. This increases, by a factor of five, the number of Pleiades members with measured periods. Included in our sample are 14 newly identified probable cluster members which have proper motions, photometry, and rotation periods consistent with membership. We compare this data to the rich sample of spectroscopically determined projected equatorial rotation velocities (vsini) available in the literature for this cluster. For stars with M > 0.85 Msun the rotation periods, vsini and radius estimates are consistent with the stars having an isotropic distribution of rotation axes, if a moderate differential rotation law is assumed. For stars with M < 0.85 Msun the inferred sini values are systematically larger than 1.0. These observations imply that the combination of measured parameters P(vsini)/R is too large by \sim 24% for low-mass stars in this cluster. By comparing our new mass-period relation for the Pleiades to the slightly older cluster M35, we confirm previous indications that the spin-down stalls at \sim 100 Myr for the slowest rotating stars with 0.7 Msun < M < 1.1 Msun a fact which may indicate that the internal transport of angular momentum is inefficient in slowly rotating solar mass stars.