Cool Stars 14 - Submitted Abstract # 174
This version created on 05 October 2006

Towards the Characterization of the Darwin Stars


Jesus Maldonado,  Universidad Complutense de Madrid UCM & Universidad
 Autonoma de Madrid UAM
Raquel Martinez-Arnaiz, Universidad Complutense de Madrid UCM
David Montes, Universidad Complutense de Madrid UCM
Carlos Eiroa, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid UAM
Benjamin Montesinos, Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia & Laboratorio
 de Astrofisica Espacial y Fisica Fundamental
Ignasi Ribas, Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai
Enrique Solano, Laboratorio de Astrofisica Espacial y Fisica Fundamental

The ESA mission Darwin will search for the presence of Earth-like
planets orbiting nearby stars, study the planet atmospheres, carry out
comparative planetology, and analyze potential spectroscopic
signatures of life.  A deep knowledge of the Darwin stars and of their
environment is required by the missions's scientific objectives.
Astrophysical information on the Darwin stars have been either
collected or estimated by the ESA Terrestrial Exoplanet-Scientific
Advisory Team (TE-SAT) by consulting a large number and variety of
data sources.  However, the existing data do not allow us to
characterize in detail the whole sample of stars in the prime target
list to the level required by Darwin scientific objectives.
Therefore, we have started precursor high resolution spectroscopic
observations aiming to a complete characterization of the prime Darwin
stars.  The main goals are:  a) to determine good spectral types and
luminosity classes;  b) to analyze the stars' kinematics;  c) to
estimate accurate rotational velocities;  d) to quantify the level of
chromospheric activity;  e) to estimate stellar ages.  Up to now, we
have obtained spectra of more than 100  Darwin stars for which, to our
knowledge, no previous high resolution spectra are available in public
sources.  All spectra have been reduced and data are being analysed to
estimate the aforementioned quantities.  Our spectra will be included
into the archive DAMA (DArwin archive MAdrid, under current
development in Madrid), which is an AVO oriented facility with
features allowing to estimate astrophysical parameters and to download
data related to the Darwin stars.

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