No Arabic abstract
We investigate mass losses via stellar winds from sun-like main sequence stars with a wide range of activity levels. We perform forward-type magnetohydrodynamical numerical experiments for Alfven wave-driven stellar winds with a wide range of the input Poynting flux from the photosphere. Increasing the magnetic field strength and the turbulent velocity at the stellar photosphere from the current solar level, the mass loss rate rapidly increases at first owing to the suppression of the reflection of the Alfven waves. The surface materials are lifted up by the magnetic pressure associated with the Alfven waves, and the cool dense chromosphere is intermittently extended to 10 -- 20 % of the stellar radius. The dense atmospheres enhance the radiative losses and eventually most of the input Poynting energy from the stellar surface escapes by the radiation. As a result, there is no more sufficient energy remained for the kinetic energy of the wind; the stellar wind saturates in very active stars, as observed in Wood et al. The saturation level is positively correlated with B_{r,0}f_0, where B_{r,0} and f_0 are the magnetic field strength and the filling factor of open flux tubes at the photosphere. If B_{r,0}f_0 is relatively large >~ 5 G, the mass loss rate could be as high as 1000 times. If such a strong mass loss lasts for ~ 1 billion years, the stellar mass itself is affected, which could be a solution to the faint young sun paradox. We derive a Reimers-type scaling relation that estimates the mass loss rate from the energetics consideration of our simulations. Finally, we derive the evolution of the mass loss rates, dot{M} t^{-1.23}, of our simulations, combining with an observed time evolution of X-ray flux from sun-like stars, which is shallower than dot{M} t^{-2.33+/-0.55} in Wood et al.(2005).
The supersonic stellar and disk winds possessed by massive young stellar objects will produce shocks when they collide against the interior of a pre-existing bipolar cavity (resulting from an earlier phase of jet activity). The shock heated gas emits thermal X-rays which may be observable by spaceborne observa- tories such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Hydrodynamical models are used to explore the wind-cavity interaction. Radiative transfer calculations are performed on the simulation output to produce synthetic X-ray observations, allowing constraints to be placed on model parameters through comparisons with observations. The model reveals an intricate interplay between the inflowing and outflowing material and is successful in reproducing the observed X-ray count rates from massive young stellar objects.
There is a subclass of the X-ray jets from young stellar objects which are heated very close to the footpoint of the jets, particularly DG Tau jets. Previous models attribute the strong heating to shocks in the jets. However, the mechanism that localizes the heating at the footpoint remains puzzling. We presented a different model of such X-ray jets, in which the disk atmosphere is magnetically heated. Our disk corona model is based on the so-called nanoflare model for the solar corona. We show that the magnetic heating near the disks can result in the formation of a hot corona with a temperature of > 10^6 K even if the average field strength in the disk is moderately weak, > 1 G. We determine the density and the temperature at the jet base by considering the energy balance between the heating and cooling. We derive the scaling relations of the mass loss rate and terminal velocity of jets. Our model is applied to the DG Tau jets. The observed temperature and estimated mass loss rate are consistent with the prediction of our model in the case of the disk magnetic field strength of ~20 G and the heating region of < 0.1 au. The derived scaling relation of the temperature of X-ray jets could be a useful tool to estimate the magnetic field strength. We also found that the jet X-ray can have a significant impact on the ionization degree near the disk surface and the dead-zone size.
Global magnetic fields of active solar-like stars are nowadays routinely detected with spectropolarimetric measurements and are mapped with Zeeman-Doppler imaging (ZDI). However, due to the cancellation of opposite field polarities, polarimetry captures only a tiny fraction of the magnetic flux and cannot assess the overall stellar surface magnetic field if it is dominated by a small-scale component. Analysis of Zeeman broadening in high-resolution intensity spectra can reveal these hidden complex magnetic fields. Historically, there were very few attempts to obtain such measurements for G dwarf stars due to the difficulty of disentangling Zeeman effect from other broadening mechanisms affecting spectral lines. Here we developed a new magnetic field diagnostic method based on relative Zeeman intensification of optical atomic lines with different magnetic sensitivity. Using this technique we obtained 78 field strength measurements for 15 Sun-like stars, including some of the best-studied young solar twins. We find that the average magnetic field strength $Bf$ drops from 1.3-2.0 kG in stars younger than about 120 Myr to 0.2-0.8 kG in older stars. The mean field strength shows a clear correlation with the Rossby number and with the coronal and chromospheric emission indicators. Our results suggest that magnetic regions have roughly the same local field strength $Bapprox3.2$ kG in all stars, with the filling factor $f$ of these regions systematically increasing with stellar activity. Comparing our results with the spectropolarimetric analyses of global magnetic fields in the same stars, we find that ZDI recovers about 1% of the total magnetic field energy in the most active stars. This figure drops to just 0.01% for the least active targets.
We present a study of the kinematical properties of a small sample of nearby near-infrared bright massive and intermediate mass young stellar objects using emission lines sensitive to discs and winds. We show for the first time that the broad ($sim500$kms$^{-1}$) symmetric line wings on the HI Brackett series lines are due to Stark broadening or electron scattering, rather than pure Doppler broadening due to high speed motion. The results are consistent with the presence of a very dense circumstellar environment. In addition, many of these lines show evidence for weak line self-absorption, suggestive of a wind or disc-wind origin for that part of the absorbing material. The weakness of the self-absorption suggests a large opening angle for such an outflow. We also study the fluorescent 1.688$mu$m FeII line, which is sensitive to dense material. We fitted a Keplerian disc model to this line, and find reasonable fits in all bar one case, in agreement with previous finding for classical Be stars that fluorescent iron transitions are reasonable disc tracers. Overall the picture is one in which these stars still have accretion discs, with a very dense inner circumstellar environment which may be tracing either the inner regions of a disc, or of a stellar wind, and in which ionised outflow is also present. The similarity with lower mass stars is striking, suggesting that at least in this mass range they form in a similar fashion.
Beyond the main sequence solar type stars undergo extensive mass loss, providing an environment where planet and brown dwarf companions interact with the surrounding material. To examine the interaction of substellar mass objects embedded in the stellar wind of an asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star, three dimensional hydrodynamical simulations at high resolution have been calculated utilizing the FLASH adaptive mesh refinement code. Attention is focused on the perturbation of the substellar mass objects on the morphology of the outflowing circumstellar matter. In particular, we determine the properties of the resulting spiral density wake as a function of the mass, orbital distance, and velocity of the object as well as the wind velocity and its sound velocity. Our results suggest that future observations of the spiral pattern may place important constraints on the properties of the unseen low mass companion in the outflowing stellar wind.