We describe the design, manufacture, and performance of bare-fiber integral field units (IFUs) for the SDSS-IV survey MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO) on the the Sloan 2.5 m telescope at Apache Point Observatory (APO). MaNGA is a luminosity-selected integral-field spectroscopic survey of 10 4 local galaxies covering 360-1030 nm at R ∼ 2200. The IFUs have hexagonal dense packing of fibers with packing regularity of 3 µm (RMS), and throughput of 96±0.5% from 350 nm to 1 µm in the lab. Their sizes range from 19 to 127 fibers (3-7 hexagonal layers) using Polymicro FBP 120:132:150 µm core:clad:buffer fibers to reach a fill fraction of 56%. High throughput (and low focal-ratio degradation) is achieved by maintaining the fiber cladding and buffer intact, ensuring excellent surface polish, and applying a multi-layer AR coating of the input and output surfaces. In operations on-sky, the IFUs show only an additional 2.3% FRD-related variability in throughput despite repeated mechanical stressing during plate plugging (however other losses are present). The IFUs achieve on-sky throughput 5% above the single-fiber feeds used in SDSS-III/BOSS, attributable to equivalent performance compared to single fibers and additional gains from the AR coating. The manufacturing process is geared toward mass-production of high-multiplex systems. The low-stress process involves a precision ferrule with hexagonal inner shape designed to lead inserted fibers to settle in a dense hexagonal pattern. The ferrule inner diameter is tapered at progressively shallower angles toward its tip and the final 2 mm are straight and only a few micron larger than necessary to hold the desired number of fibers. Our IFU manufacturing process scales easily to accommodate other fiber sizes and can produce IFUs with substantially larger fiber counts. To assure quality, automated testing in a simple and inexpensive system enables complete characterization of throughput and fiber metrology. Future applications include larger IFUs, higher fill-factors with stripped buffer, de-cladding, and lenslet coupling.

We present the largest sample of flares ever compiled for a single M dwarf, the active M4 star GJ 1243. Over 6100 individual flare events, with energies ranging from 10 29 to 10 33 erg, are found in 11 months of 1-minute cadence data from Kepler. This sample is unique for its completeness and dynamic range. We have developed automated tools for finding flares in short-cadence Kepler light curves, and performed extensive validation and classification of the sample by eye. From this pristine sample of flares we generate a median flare template. This template shows that two exponential cooling phases are present during the white-light flare decay, providing fundamental constraints for models of flare physics. The template is also used as a basis function to decompose complex multipeaked flares, allowing us to study the energy distribution of these events. Only a small number of flare events are not well fit by our template. We find that complex, multi-peaked flares occur in over 80% of flares with a duration of 50 minutes or greater. The underlying distribution of flare durations for events 10 minutes and longer appears to follow a broken power law. Our results support the idea that sympathetic flaring may be responsible for some complex flare events.

We analyze K2 light curves for 132 low-mass (1 > ∼ M * > ∼ 0.1 M ⊙ ) members of the 600-800 Myrold Hyades cluster and measure rotation periods (P rot ) for 116 of these stars. These include 93 stars with no prior P rot measurement; the total number of Hyads with known P rot is now 232. We then combine literature binary data with Gaia DR2 photometry and astrometry to select single star sequences in the Hyades and its roughly coeval Praesepe open cluster, and derive a new reddening value of A V = 0.035±0.011 for Praesepe. Comparing the effective temperature-P rot distributions for the Hyades and Praesepe, we find that solar-type Hyads rotate, on average, 0.4 d slower than their Praesepe counterparts. This P rot difference indicates that the Hyades is slightly older than Praesepe: we apply a new gyrochronology model tuned with Praesepe and the Sun, and find an age difference between the two clusters of 57 Myr. However, this P rot difference decreases and eventually disappears for lower-mass stars. This provides further evidence for stalling in the rotational evolution of these stars, and highlights the need for more detailed analysis of angular-momentum evolution for stars of different masses and ages.

Direct imaging of extrasolar planets with future space-based coronagraphic telescopes may provide a means of detecting companion moons at wavelengths where the moon outshines the planet. We propose a detection strategy based on the positional variation of the center of light with wavelength, "spectroastrometry." This new application of this technique could be used to detect an exomoon, to determine the exomoon's orbit and the mass of the host exoplanet, and to disentangle the spectra of the planet and moon. We consider two model systems, for which we discuss the requirements for detection of exomoons around nearby stars. We simulate the characterization of an Earth-Moon analog system with spectroastrometry, showing that the orbit, the planet mass, and the spectra of both bodies can be recovered. To enable the detection and characterization of exomoons we recommend that coronagraphic telescopes should extend in wavelength coverage to 3 μm, and should be designed with spectroastrometric requirements in mind.

Planetary rotation rate has a significant effect on atmospheric circulation, where the strength of the Coriolis effect in part determines the efficiency of latitudinal heat transport, altering cloud distributions, surface temperatures, and precipitation patterns. In this study we use the ROCKE-3D dynamic-ocean general circulation model to study the effects of slow rotations and increased insolations on the 'fractional habitability' and silicate weathering rate of an Earth-like world. Defining the fractional habitability f h to be the percentage of a planet's surface which falls in the 0 ≤ T ≤ 100 • C temperature regime, we find a moderate increase in f h with a 10% and 20% increase in insolation and a possible maximum in f h at sidereal day-lengths between 8 and 32 times that of the modern Earth. By tracking precipitation and run-off we further determine that there is a rotational regime centered on a 4-day period in which the silicate weathering rate is maximized and is particularly strongly peaked at higher overall insolations. Because of weathering's integral role in the long-term carbonate-silicate cycle, we suggest that climate stability may be strongly affected by the anticipated rotational evolution of temperate terrestrial-type worlds, and should be considered a major factor in their study. In light of our results we argue that planetary rotation period is an important factor to consider when determining the habitability of terrestrial worlds.