Planetesimal Formation in Weakly Reinforced Pressure Bumps/  Analyzing the Relationships Between Flare Rates and Stellar Properties of Kepler Stars 

Andrew Thomas, ISU/ Patrick Stanley and Kiley Fridley, ISU

Abstract: Observations from ALMA have shown that rings are a very common feature in the gas disks around young stars. Previous works have shown that these rings, produced by gas pressure bumps, are excellent candidates to form planetesimals. However, particles tend to feedback onto the bump and destroy it. This work seeks to understand how pressure bump size and reinforcement against particle feedback affect planetesimal formation. We establish a minimum bump amplitude of A=0.15 to form planetesimals at any reinforcement timescale and show that planetesimal formation is not strongly impacted by reinforcement time; even in cases of weak reinforcement and small pressure bumps, planetesimal formation is robust.

Analyzing the Relationships Between Flare Rates and Stellar Properties of Kepler Stars 

Patrick Stanley and Kiley Fridley, ISU

AltaiPony, a flare finding program, was used to verify the flare counts of flaring Kepler stars. It was found that the original program used by Davenport et al. (Appaloosa) was overcounting flares. Using a catalog of rotating stars (McQuillan et al. 2014), a sample of 2505 stars was obtained. AltaiPony then found 34073 candidate flares. However, this number of candidate flares is conservative as AltaiPony is undercounting flares in most cases. Thus-far, a loose relationship between the rotation period, flaring rates, and spectral types of these stars, that is matching the theoretical relationship, has been found. By analyzing the flaring rates of these stars, we are hoping to uncover previously unexplored relationships between spectral type, flaring rates, and other stellar properties such as temperature and rotational period.