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Description
We present the results of a 5 month photometric time-series survey for stellar rotation periods combined with a 4 year radial-velocity survey for membership and binarity in the 220Myr open cluster M34. We report surface rotation periods for 120 stars, 83 of which are kinematic and photometric late-type cluster members. A comparison to previous work serves to illustrate the importance of high-cadence long baseline photometric observations and membership information. The new M34 periods are less biased against slow rotation and cleaned for non-members. The rotation periods of the cluster members span over more than an order of magnitude from 0.5 days up to 11.5 days, and trace two distinct rotational sequences -fast (C) and moderate-to-slow (I)- in the color-period diagram. The sequences represent two different states (fast and slow) in the rotational evolution of the late-type cluster members. We use the color-period diagrams for M34 and for younger and older clusters to estimate the timescale for the transition from the C to the I sequence and find <~150Myr, ~150-300Myr, and ~300-600 Myr for G, early-mid K, and late K dwarfs, respectively. The small number of stars in the gap between C and I suggests a quick transition. We determine a gyrochronology age of 240Myr for M34.
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