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arXiv 1704.09009astro-ph.SR
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长短周期共存恒星活动周期的演化

Evolution of coexisting long and short period stellar activity cycles

Axel Brandenburg, Savita Mathur, Travis S. Metcalfe

摘要:

太阳的磁场活动在大约11年的周期内变强变弱,调节地球所经历的辐射和带电粒子环境,称为“空间天气“。威尔逊山天文台数十年来的观测显示,其他恒星在其Ca II H+K线的发射中也显示出有规律的活动周期,并确定了周期长度与恒星自转速率之间的两种不同关系。最近在更高节奏下的观察发现了更短的周期,周期在1-3年之间。其中一些较短的周期与较长的周期共存,这表明两个潜在的发电机可以同时运行。我们将这些新的观测结果与以前的数据相结合,我们发现,较长和较短的周期与早期基于平均活动水平和旋转周期的分析所预期的结果非常一致。与周期行为的两个分支相关联的相对湍流长度尺度表明,近表面发电机可能是驱动更活跃的恒星周期的主导机制,而在更深层运行的发电机可能在不太活跃的恒星中占主导地位。然而,在小于2.3 Gyr的恒星的所有活动水平上都发现了几个同样突出的长短周期的例子。偏离预期的循环周期表明对流区的深度或金属丰度没有依赖性。对于一些表现出较长周期的恒星,我们计算了未来高节奏观测可能检测到的较短周期的周期。

英文摘要:

The magnetic activity of the Sun becomes stronger and weaker over roughly an 11 year cycle, modulating the radiation and charged particle environment experienced by the Earth as "space weather". Decades of observations from the Mount Wilson Observatory have revealed that other stars also show regular activity cycles in their Ca II H+K line emission, and identified two different relationships between the length of the cycle and the rotation rate of the star. Recent observations at higher cadence have allowed the discovery of shorter cycles with periods between 1-3 yr. Some of these shorter cycles coexist with longer cycle periods, suggesting that two underlying dynamos can operate simultaneously. We combine these new observations with previous data, and we show that the longer and shorter cycle periods agree remarkably well with those expected from an earlier analysis based on the mean activity level and the rotation period. The relative turbulent length scales associated with the two branches of cyclic behavior suggest that a near-surface dynamo may be the dominant mechanism that drives cycles in more active stars, whereas a dynamo operating in deeper layers may dominate in less active stars. However, several examples of equally prominent long and short cycles have been found at all levels of activity of stars younger than 2.3 Gyr. Deviations from the expected cycle periods show no dependence on the depth of the convection zone or on the metallicity. For some stars that exhibit longer cycles, we compute the periods of shorter cycles that might be detected with future high-cadence observations.

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