The Effect of Combined Magnetic Geometries on Thermally Driven Winds I: Interaction of Dipolar and Quadrupolar Fields

Cool stars with outer convective envelopes are observed to have magnetic fields with a variety of geometries, which on large scales are dominated by a combination of the lowest order fields such as the dipole, quadrupole and octupole modes. Magnetised stellar wind outflows are primarily responsible for the loss of angular momentum from these objects during the main sequence. Previous works have shown the reduced effectiveness of the stellar wind braking mechanism with increasingly complex, but singular, magnetic field geometries. In this paper, we quantify the impact of mixed dipolar and quadrupolar fields on the spin-down torque using 50 MHD simulations with mixed field, along with 10 of each pure geometries. The simulated winds include a wide range of magnetic field strength and reside in the slow-rotator regime. We find that the stellar wind braking torque from our combined geometry cases are well described by a broken power law behaviour, where the torque scaling with field strength can be predicted by the dipole component alone or the quadrupolar scaling utilising the total field strength. The simulation results can be scaled and apply to all main-sequence cool stars. For Solar parameters, the lowest order component of the field (dipole in this paper) is the most significant in determining the angular momentum loss.Comment: 15 pages + 9 figures (main), 3 pages + 1 figure (appendix), accepted for publication to Ap

The Effect of Magnetic Variability on Stellar Angular Momentum Loss II: The Sun, 61 Cygni A, ϵ\epsilon Eridani, ξ\xi Bootis A and τ\tau Bootis A

The magnetic fields of low-mass stars are observed to be variable on decadal timescales, ranging in behaviour from cyclic to stochastic. The changing strength and geometry of the magnetic field should modify the efficiency of angular momentum loss by stellar winds, but this has not been well quantified. In Finley et al. (2018) we investigated the variability of the Sun, and calculated the time-varying angular momentum loss rate in the solar wind. In this work, we focus on four low-mass stars that have all had their surface magnetic fields mapped for multiple epochs. Using mass loss rates determined from astrospheric Lyman-$\alpha$ absorption, in conjunction with scaling relations from the MHD simulations of Finley & Matt (2018), we calculate the torque applied to each star by their magnetised stellar winds. The variability of the braking torque can be significant. For example, the largest torque for $\epsilon$ Eri is twice its decadal averaged value. This variation is comparable to that observed in the solar wind, when sparsely sampled. On average, the torques in our sample range from 0.5-1.5 times their average value. We compare these results to the torques of Matt et al. (2015), which use observed stellar rotation rates to infer the long-time averaged torque on stars. We find that our stellar wind torques are systematically lower than the long-time average values, by a factor of ~3-30. Stellar wind variability appears unable to resolve this discrepancy, implying that there remain some problems with observed wind parameters, stellar wind models, or the long-term evolution models, which have yet to be understood.Comment: 15 pages + 8 figures, accepted for publication to Ap

New Calculations of Stellar Wind Torques

Using numerical simulations of magnetized stellar winds, we carry out a parameter study to find the dependence of the stellar wind torque on observable parameters. We find that the power-law dependencies of the torque on parameters is significantly different than what has been used in all spin evolution models to date.Comment: To appear in the proceedings for the 15th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun. 4 page poster contributio

Spin of accreting stars: accretion powered stellar winds vs. disk locking

Presentations available via the Conference website at: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/ppv2005/pdf/allposters.pdfPoster presentation from: Conference: Protostars and Planets V. 24 - 28 October 2005. Hilton Waikoloa Village, The Big Island, Hawaii

From solar to stellar corona: the role of wind, rotation and magnetism

Observations of surface magnetic fields are now within reach for many stellar types thanks to the development of Zeeman-Doppler Imaging. These observations are extremely useful for constraining rotational evolution models of stars, as well as for characterizing the generation of magnetic field. We recently demonstrated that the impact of coronal magnetic field topology on the rotational braking of a star can be parametrized with a scalar parameter: the open magnetic flux. However, without running costly numerical simulations of the stellar wind, reconstructing the coronal structure of the large scale magnetic field is not trivial. An alternative -broadly used in solar physics- is to extrapolate the surface magnetic field assuming a potential field in the corona, to describe the opening of the field lines by the magnetized wind. This technique relies on the definition of a so-called source surface radius, which is often fixed to the canonical value of 2.5Rsun. However this value likely varies from star to star. To resolve this issue, we use our extended set of 2.5D wind simulations published in 2015, to provide a criteria for the opening of field lines as well as a simple tool to assess the source surface radius and the open magnetic flux. This allows us to derive the magnetic torque applied to the star by the wind from any spectropolarimetric observation. We conclude by discussing some estimations of spin-down time scales made using our technique, and compare them to observational requirements.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

On close-in magnetized star-planet interactions

Proceedings: Semaine de l’Astrophysique Française, Nice (5 juin au 8 juin 2012)We present 2D magnetohydrodynamic simulations performed with the PLUTO code to model magnetized star-planet interactions. We study two simple scenarios of magnetized star-planet interactions: the unipolar and dipolar interactions. Despite the simplified hypotheses we consider in the model, the qualitative behavior of the interactions is very well recovered. These encouraging results promote further developments of the model to obtain predictions on the effect and the physical manifestation of magnetized star--close-in planet interactions

Coronal mass ejections and angular momentum loss in young stars

Conference Proceeding© International Astronomical Union 2013In our own solar system, the necessity of understanding space weather is readily evident. Fortunately for Earth, our nearest stellar neighbor is relatively quiet, exhibiting activity levels several orders of magnitude lower than young, solar-type stars. In protoplanetary systems, stellar magnetic phenomena observed are analogous to the solar case, but dramatically enhanced on all physical scales: bigger, more energetic, more frequent. While coronal mass ejections (CMEs) could play a significant role in the evolution of protoplanets, they could also affect the evolution of the central star itself. To assess the consequences of prominence eruption/CMEs, we have invoked the solar-stellar connection to estimate, for young, solar-type stars, how frequently stellar CMEs may occur and their attendant mass and angular momentum loss rates. We will demonstrate the necessary conditions under which CMEs could slow stellar rotation. © 2013 International Astronomical Union