First Name:
Sean
Last Name:
Morrison
Major Department:
Physics
Thesis Director:
Richard Gray
Date of Thesis:
May 2011
This thesis discusses solar type stars that are between 0.3 and 1.5 Gyr old, otherwise known as young solar analogs (YSAs). It explores how they are defined, the methods used to study them, and the state of research in the field. The study of young solar analogs offers us a window into the conditions in the early solar system when life was establishing a foothold on the Earth. The theories of the young Sun predict that early life had to contend with a hostile space environment; strong ultraviolet fluxes without the benefit of a protective ozone layer; enhanced solar winds, flares and magnetic storms, perhaps strong enough to compromise temporarily the earths magnetosphere; and a variability in the solar constant at least an order of magnitude greater than what the Earth experiences today. This research strives to determine how accurate these theories are by studying stars that have the same dynamics as the Sun did during the early solar system. This paper also gives a detailed description of the techniques, instruments, and setups that I have used in my preliminary photometric study of YSAs at Appalachian State University. It also gives a summary of our preliminary results and conclusions from the data that we have obtained over the course of this project.