Discovery of superflares

AbstractWe have discovered 1547 ‘superflares’ on about 279 G-type main-sequence stars by using the Kepler-spacecraft data of Q0-Q6. ‘Superflares’ mean flares that radiate total energy 10 times or more larger than that of the largest flare in the Sun ever recorded. We here briefly review our current understandings on superflares and superflare stars obtained by analyzing the Kepler data and follow-up high dispersion spectra.

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Chromospheric activity as a function of age in main-sequence stars

Symposium - International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s0074180900053146 ◽

1966 ◽

Vol 24 ◽

pp. 40-43

Author(s):

O. C. Wilson ◽

A. Skumanich

Keyword(s):

Main Sequence ◽

The Sun ◽

Main Sequence Stars ◽

Tentative Conclusion ◽

Chromospheric Activity ◽

General Field ◽

Large Clusters

Evidence previously presented by one of the authors (1) suggests strongly that chromospheric activity decreases with age in main sequence stars. This tentative conclusion rests principally upon a comparison of the members of large clusters (Hyades, Praesepe, Pleiades) with non-cluster objects in the general field, including the Sun. It is at least conceivable, however, that cluster and non-cluster stars might differ in some fundamental fashion which could influence the degree of chromospheric activity, and that the observed differences in chromospheric activity would then be attributable to the circumstances of stellar origin rather than to age.

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Stellar 5 min Oscillations

International Astronomical Union Colloquium ◽

10.1017/s0252921100095828 ◽

1983 ◽

Vol 66 ◽

pp. 469-486

Author(s):

Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard ◽

Søren Frandsen

Keyword(s):

Spectral Type ◽

Main Sequence ◽

Total Flux ◽

The Sun ◽

Major Fraction ◽

Main Sequence Stars ◽

Red Supergiants

AbstractEstimates are given for the amplitudes of stochastically excited oscillations in Main Sequence stars and cool giants; these were obtained using the equipartition between convective and pulsational energy which was originally proposed by Goldreich and Keeley. The amplitudes of both velocity and luminosity perturbation generally increase with increasing mass along the Main Sequence as long as convection transports a major fraction of the total flux, and the amplitudes also increase with the age of the model. The 1.5 Mʘ ZAMS model, of spectral type F0, has velocity amplitudes ten times larger than those found in the Sun. For very luminous red supergiants luminosity amplitudes of up to about 0ṃ.1 are predicted, in rough agreement with observations presented by Maeder.

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A comparison of the density gradients of main sequence stars obtained by two different methods in different galactic latitudes

Symposium - International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s0074180900000620 ◽

1970 ◽

Vol 38 ◽

pp. 232-235

Author(s):

W. Becker ◽

R. Fenkart

Keyword(s):

Main Sequence ◽

Milky Way ◽

Absolute Magnitude ◽

Galactic Centre ◽

Density Gradients ◽

The Sun ◽

Main Sequence Stars

The Basel Observatory program of the determination of disc- and halo-density gradients for different intervals of absolute magnitude comprises in addition to Milky Way fields several directions, all pointing to Selected Areas near a plane perpendicular to the galactic equator and passing through the sun and the galactic centre. It was started with SA 51 (Becker, 1965) and continued with Sa 57, 54 and 141 (Fenkart, 1967, 1968, 1969).

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A More Comprehensive Habitable Zone for Finding Life on Other Planets

Geosciences ◽

10.3390/geosciences8080280 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 8 (8) ◽

pp. 280 ◽

Cited By ~ 29

Author(s):

Ramses Ramirez

Keyword(s):

Greenhouse Gases ◽

Main Sequence ◽

Habitable Zone ◽

Circular Region ◽

Main Sequence Stars ◽

Habitable Planets ◽

Host Life ◽

Navigational Tool ◽

Bodies Of Water

The habitable zone (HZ) is the circular region around a star(s) where standing bodies of water could exist on the surface of a rocky planet. Space missions employ the HZ to select promising targets for follow-up habitability assessment. The classical HZ definition assumes that the most important greenhouse gases for habitable planets orbiting main-sequence stars are CO2 and H2O. Although the classical HZ is an effective navigational tool, recent HZ formulations demonstrate that it cannot thoroughly capture the diversity of habitable exoplanets. Here, I review the planetary and stellar processes considered in both classical and newer HZ formulations. Supplementing the classical HZ with additional considerations from these newer formulations improves our capability to filter out worlds that are unlikely to host life. Such improved HZ tools will be necessary for current and upcoming missions aiming to detect and characterize potentially habitable exoplanets.

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Differential Rotation and Magnetic Activity of the Lower Main Sequence Stars

International Astronomical Union Colloquium ◽

10.1017/s0252921100075539 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 51 ◽

pp. 296-297

Author(s):

G. Belvedere ◽

L. Paterno ◽

M. Stix

Keyword(s):

Spherical Shell ◽

Differential Rotation ◽

Main Sequence ◽

Magnetic Activity ◽

The Sun ◽

Coupling Constant ◽

Main Sequence Stars ◽

Dynamo Theory ◽

Magnetic Cycles ◽

Surface Convection

AbstractWe extend to the lower main sequence stars the analysis of convection interacting with rotation in a compressible spherical shell, already applied to the solar case (Belvedere and Paterno, 1977; Belvedere et al. 1979a). We assume that the coupling constant ε between convection and rotation, does not depend on the spectral type. Therefore we take ε determined from the observed differential rotation of the Sun, and compute differential rotation and magnetic cycles for stars ranging from F5 to MO, namely for those stars which are supposed to possess surface convection zones (Belvedere et al. 1979b, c, d). The results show that the strength of differential rotation decreases from a maximum at F5 down to a minimum at G5 and then increases towards later spectral types. The computations of the magnetic cycles based on the αω-dynamo theory show that dynamo instability decreases from F5 to G5, and then increases towards the later spectral types reaching a maximum at MO. The period of the magnetic cycles increases from a few years at F5 to about 100 years at MO. Also the extension of the surface magnetic activity increases substantially towards the later spectral types. The results are discussed in the framework of Wilson’s (1978) observations.

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The Rotation of Pre-Main Sequence Stars

Highlights of Astronomy ◽

10.1017/s1539299600004822 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

pp. 835-837

Author(s):

Leonard V. Kuhi ◽

Stuart Vogel

Keyword(s):

Angular Momentum ◽

Spectral Type ◽

Main Sequence ◽

Rotational Velocity ◽

The Sun ◽

Main Sequence Stars ◽

Lower Mass ◽

B Stars ◽

Large Numbers ◽

Rapid Deceleration

Kraft (1970) obtained the rotational velocities for large numbers of stars located in the field and in clusters of different ages. He noted that (a) among the field stars those stars with strong Call K emission had larger rotational velocities than those without; (b) stars in the Hyades and Pleiades (which are much younger than the field) had both larger rotational velocities and stronger Call K emission than field stars; (c) there was a pronounced break at spectral type early F in v sini as a function of spectral type and (d) the distribution of angular momentum per unit, mass J(M⊚) was proportional to M0.57 for main sequence stars with mass M > 1.5 Mʘ. This distribution predicted a v sini of ˜75 km/sec for stars of lower mass (e.g. G type) but such high velocities were not seen in the Pleiades nor in the sun. This implied a more rapid deceleration of v sini for lower mass stars and led to estimates of the e-folding time of ˜4×l08 years for stars of 1.2 M⊚ to reduce their v sini from that of the Pleiades to that of the Hyades and ˜4×l09 years to go from the Hyades to the sun’s v sini. We note also that the age of the Pleiades is approximately equal to the pre-main sequence lifetime of a 1.0 M0 star so that the zero-age main sequence cannot have J(M) α M0.57 for ˜1 M0 stars. Skumanich (1972) showed that both the Call k emission and the rotational velocity decayed as the (age)-½ for main-sequence stars.

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A million binaries from Gaia eDR3: sample selection and validation of Gaia parallax uncertainties

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ◽

10.1093/mnras/stab323 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Kareem El-Badry ◽

Hans-Walter Rix ◽

Tyler M Heintz

Keyword(s):

White Dwarf ◽

Binary Stars ◽

Main Sequence ◽

Sample Selection ◽

Mass Relation ◽

The Sun ◽

The Public ◽

Spatially Resolved ◽

The Masses

Abstract We construct from Gaia eDR3 an extensive catalog of spatially resolved binary stars within ≈ 1 kpc of the Sun, with projected separations ranging from a few au to 1 pc. We estimate the probability that each pair is a chance alignment empirically, using the Gaia catalog itself to calculate the rate of chance alignments as a function of observables. The catalog contains 1.3 (1.1) million binaries with >90% (>99%) probability of being bound, including 16,000 white dwarf – main sequence (WD+MS) binaries and 1,400 WD+WD binaries. We make the full catalog publicly available, as well as the queries and code to produce it. We then use this sample to calibrate the published Gaia DR3 parallax uncertainties, making use of the binary components’ near-identical parallaxes. We show that these uncertainties are generally reliable for faint stars (G ≳ 18), but are underestimated significantly for brighter stars. The underestimates are generally $\le 30\%$ for isolated sources with well-behaved astrometry, but are larger (up to ∼80%) for apparently well-behaved sources with a companion within ≲ 4 arcsec, and much larger for sources with poor astrometric fits. We provide an empirical fitting function to inflate published σϖ values for isolated sources. The public catalog offers wide ranging follow-up opportunities: from calibrating spectroscopic surveys, to precisely constraining ages of field stars, to the masses and the initial-final mass relation of white dwarfs, to dynamically probing the Galactic tidal field.

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The Existence of Moving Groups and the Disk Heating Problem

Symposium - International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s0074180900230210 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 169 ◽

pp. 513-514

Author(s):

B. Chen ◽

F. Figueras ◽

J. Torra ◽

R. Asiain ◽

C. Jordi

Keyword(s):

Main Sequence ◽

Velocity Dispersion ◽

A Priori ◽

The Sun ◽

Main Sequence Stars ◽

Large Sample ◽

Objective Evidence ◽

Moving Groups ◽

Input Catalogue ◽

Local Disk

A powerful moving group-finding algorithm has been developed and applied to a large sample of B, A and F main sequence stars from the Hipparcos Input Catalogue. Four moving groups near the Sun (Pleiades, Sirius, IC2391 and Hyades) have been identified without assuming any a priori knowledge of the properties of moving groups. This is the most convincing objective evidence for their existence. After the members of the moving groups are removed from the sample, we investigate the disk heating problem. The results show that the velocity dispersion of the local disk stars increases with age, roughly as ≃ ∞ τ1/5.

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