I. Boisse, X. Bonfils, N. C. Santos, P. Figueira

Abstract
Dark spots and bright plages are present on the surface of dwarf stars from spectral types F to M, even in their low-active phase (like the Sun). Their appearance and disappearance on the stellar photosphere, combined with the stellar rotation, may lead to errors and uncertainties in the characterization of planets both in radial velocity (RV) and photometry. Spot Oscillation and Planet (SOAP) is a tool offered to the community that enables to simulate spots and plages on rotating stars and computes their impact on RV and photometric measurements. This tool will help to understand the challenges related to the knowledge of stellar activity for the next decade: detect telluric planets in the habitable zone of their stars (from G to M dwarfs), understand the activity in the low-mass end of M dwarf (on which future projects, like SPIRou or CARMENES, will focus), limitation to the characterization of the exoplanetary atmosphere (from the ground or with Spitzer, JWST), search for planets around young stars. These can be simulated with SOAP in order to search for indices and corrections to the effect of activity.

New Quests in Stellar Astrophysics III: A Panchromatic View of Solar-like Stars, With and Without Planets
M. Chavez, E. Bertone, O. Vega, V. De la Luz

Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Volume 472, Page 259
2013 April

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