iSTARMOD: A Python Code to Quantify Chromospheric Activity by Using the Spectral Subtraction Technique

TL;DR

iSTARMOD is a Python tool that automates the measurement of chromospheric activity in stars using spectral subtraction, improving usability and enabling large-scale analysis for stellar activity and exoplanet research.

Contribution

The paper introduces iSTARMOD, an enhanced Python code for quantifying stellar chromospheric activity with improved usability, modularity, and calibration features, facilitating large-scale stellar analysis.

Findings

Provides a publicly available Python tool for chromospheric activity measurement.

Includes calibration functions to convert emission measurements into surface fluxes.

Enables automatic analysis of large spectral datasets for stellar activity and exoplanet studies.

Abstract

The use of the spectral subtraction technique allows measurements of chromospheric activity in late-type stars across several activity indicators, such as H$\alpha$ and the other Balmer lines in the visible, He I D3 and Na I D1, D2, Ca II H and K, and Ca II infrared triplet, as well as the Paschen series and He I $\lambda$10830 lines in the near-infrared. iSTARMOD is an updated and extended version of the original STARMOD code and its subsequent modifications. iSTARMOD is presented in this paper as a Python code developed to quantify chromospheric activity by using the spectral subtraction technique. iSTARMOD improves usability, modularity, and integration with modern data analysis workflows and is publicly available, including several examples that help one learn how to use and test the code. The iSTARMOD code is accompanied here with a series of calibrations of $\chi$-functions, to transform the excess emission equivalent widths measured through iSTARMOD into absolute surface fluxes. The method provided with this code and the corresponding flux calibrations allows for the automatic characterization of the chromospheric activity of a large number of spectra or a large number of stars and is also very useful for mitigating the effect of activity on radial velocities in the search for exoplanets.