M DWARFS ACCOUNT FOR 75% OF ALL STARS. THE NEAREST M DWARFS ARE THE MOST EASILY STUDIED; MOREOVER FOR THE COMING DECADE THE ONLY SPECTROSCOPICALLY-ACCESSIBLE TEMPERATE TERRESTRIAL WORLDS WILL BE THE ONES THAT TRANSIT THE CLOSEST MID-TO-LATE M-DWARFS. KEY STELLAR PROPERTIES REMAIN UNCERTAIN NOTABLY THEIR MAGNETIC ACTIVITY ROTATION PERIODS AND MULTIPLICITY. WE PROPOSE TO GATHER TESS 2-MINUTE CADENCE OBSERVATIONS OF THE VOLUME-COMPLETE SAMPLE OF MID-TO-LATE M DWARFS WITHIN 15PC. SHORT CADENCE IS ESSENTIAL TO DETERMINE THE FLARE MORPHOLOGIES; WE WILL ALSO MEASURE ROTATION PERIODS AND PRECISELY MEASURE RADII FOR NEW-FOUND ECLIPSING BINARIES. WE WILL COMBINE THE TESS LIGHT CURVES WITH OUR ONGOING HIGH-RES SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY TO YIELD A LEGACY DATASET OF OUR CLOSEST STELLAR NEIGHBORS.
$25,000FY2020National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA
President And Fellows Of Harvard College