1. RR Lyrae Research with the Kepler Mission
Karen Kinemuchi
Kepler Guest Observer Office
NASA-Ames Research Center

4. If one must do astronomy, only do astronomy with the best....
GWP is one of the most interesting astronomers at Santa Barbara Street
Apologies to the Dos Equis ad and the most interesting man in the world

5. RR Lyrae Research with the Kepler Mission
Karen Kinemuchi
Kepler Guest Observer Office
NASA-Ames Research Center

6. Kepler – NASA Discovery Mission #10
NASA’s first mission capable of finding Earth sized planets in the habitable zone.

8. Kepler FAQ
Near continuous observations of Kepler FOV (105 deg2). Stares at the same region of the sky throughout the spacecraft’s life
Earth-trailing orbit but rolls 90 deg every 90 days to realign solar panels wrt to sun.
Galactic latitude ~12 deg. Centered at RA=19:22:40, DEC=+44:30:00
6 million cataloged objects in the FOV
Kepler Input Catalog (KIC) complete down to 16th mag
Kepler bandpass ( Å)
Light curve information is downlinked for ~160,000 selected objects (including RR Lyrae stars in the FOV)
Long cadence (30-minutes) or short cadence (1-minute)

9. RR Lyr as seen by a thesis student
1912 Observations
Tucker Lick Obs. Bull. No.232
701 data points over 13 days – unevenly spaced!

10. What a thesis student can see today…99 years later!
Kepler ID: ….. aka RR Lyr

14. Kepler RR Lyrae Stars RR Lyr (Kp ~7.8) 31 RRab (Kp~11.0-17.5)
Total of 33 RRL in Kepler FOV
Observational mode: long cadence
RR Lyr (Kp ~7.8)
31 RRab (Kp~ )
18 non-Blazhko
13 Blazhko
4 +/- 1 RRc

15. First Kepler Results Kolenberg et al. 2010
57 RRL candidates were observed: 23 reclassified as eclipsing binaries or ellipsoidal variables
28 RRab
Period range d
11 exhibited Blazhko (40%)
Additional frequencies : period-doubling bifurcation

16. Period Doubling effect Szabo et al. 2010
Observed for the first time in RR Lyrae stars with Kepler data
Prominently seen in 3 Blazhko RRab stars
RR Lyr
V808 Cyg
V355 Cyg
4 other stars show some small PD effect
A transient and varying effect tied to the Blazhko effect characterized by
alternating cycles
half-integer frequencies (1/2 f0, 3/2 f0, 5/2f0...)
Not all Blazhko RRab stars exhibit the period doubling phenomenon

17. RR Lyr Q1 Kolenberg et al. 2010

18. Benko et al. 2010 Q0+Q1+Q2+Q3 data
Quarter 0,1, and 2 long cadence data of 29 RR Lyrae stars. Total of 138 days of observations.
14 of the 29 have the Blazhko effect (48%)
Smallest Blazhko amplitude detected with KIC (0.03 mag)
Discovery of new additional frequencies (half-integer frequencies)
V350 Lyr : double-mode RRL pulsating in the fundamental and second-overtone modes

19. Future resources Variable star catalog based on the Kepler full frame
images
~ variable star candidates, ~75% not
being observed!
Find more RRL candidates

20. RR Lyrae Kepler Data: KASC & Public
Kepler Asteroseismic Science Consortium (KASC)
Open to all! 438 members and 14 working groups
Multi-Mission Archive Space Telescope
Kepler Guest Observer Program (funding)
Director’s Discretionary Target (Jan 2011, Apr 2011)
Astrophysics Data Archive Program (funding)
Next call for proposals: May 2011
Participating Scientist Program (funding)
Next call: Feb 2011