On the Rotational Evolution of Solar- and Late-Type Stars, Its Magnetic Origins, and the Possibility of Stellar Gyrochronology

By S. Barnes. 2003

514 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We propose a simple interpretation of the rotation period data for solar- and late-type stars. The open cluster and Mount Wilson star observations suggest that rotating stars lie primarily on two sequences, initially called I and C. Some stars lie in the intervening gap. These sequences, and the fractional numbers of stars on each sequence, evolve systematically with cluster age, enabling us to construct crude rotational isochrones allowing "stellar gyrochronology," a procedure, on improvement, likely to yield ages for individual field stars. The age and color dependences of the sequences allow the identification of the underlying mechanism, which appears to be primarily magnetic. The majority of solar- and late-type stars possess a dominant Sun-like, or interface, magnetic field, which connects the convective envelope to both the radiative interior of the star and the exterior, where winds can drain off angular momentum. These stars spin down Skumanich style. An age-decreasing fraction of young G, K, and M stars, which are rapid rotators, possess only a convective field, which is not only inefficient in depleting angular momentum but also incapable of coupling the surface convection zone to the inner radiative zone, so that only the outer zone is spun down, and on an exponential timescale. These stars do not yet possess large-scale dynamos. The large-scale magnetic field associated with the dynamo, apparently created by the shear between the decoupled radiative and convective zones, (re)couples the convective and radiative zones and drives a star from the convective to the interface sequence through the gap on a timescale that increases as stellar mass decreases. Fully convective stars do not possess such an interface, cannot generate an interface dynamo, and hence can never make such a transition. Helioseismic results for the present-day Sun agree with this scheme, which also explains the rotational bimodality observed by Herbst and collaborators among pre-main-sequence stars and the termination of this bimodality when stars become fully convective. This paradigm also provides a new basis for understanding stellar X-ray and chromospheric activity, light-element abundances, and perhaps other stellar phenomena that depend on rotation.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/75f80ede4b2fc421588cb43ec5487f2f334bbea5

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Citations in the corpus

• THE KEPLER CLUSTER STUDY: STELLAR ROTATION IN NGC 6811 (2011, background): “For stars in young (∼100Myr) clusters the relationship between P and M is not unique, and the surface splits into two (fast and slow) branches (e.g. Barnes 2003; Hartman et al. 2009, 2010; Meibom et al. 2009, 2011; Irwin et al. 2009; James et al. 2010).”
• STELLAR ROTATION IN M35: MASS–PERIOD RELATIONS, SPIN-DOWN RATES, AND GYROCHRONOLOGY (2008, methodology): “We find that the heuristic rotational isochrones proposed by Barnes (2003) and Barnes (2007) match the location of M35 I and C sequences using the independently determined – 26 – stellar evolution isochrone age for M35.”
• TESTING A PREDICTIVE THEORETICAL MODEL FOR THE MASS LOSS RATES OF COOL STARS (2011, background): “6) obtained from young solar analogs (e.g., Barnes 2003; Güdel 2007).”
• THE STELLAR-ACTIVITY–ROTATION RELATIONSHIP AND THE EVOLUTION OF STELLAR DYNAMOS (2011, background): “…the empirically determined saturation threshold and the time at which stars transition from the rotational convective sequence to the interface sequence (Barnes 2003b), we suggest that the phenomenon of dynamo saturation is actually caused by a change in the dy- namo configuration of the star.”
• The Origin of T Tauri X-Ray Emission: New Insights from the Chandra Orion Ultradeep Project (2005, background): “Finally, the magnetic star-disk interaction may also have an effect on the coupling between inner and outer layers within the star and thereby affect the level of magnetic activity (see Barnes 2003a, 2003b).”
• SUPERFLARES ON SOLAR-TYPE STARS OBSERVED WITH KEPLER. I. STATISTICAL PROPERTIES OF SUPERFLARES (2013, background): “The rotation period of a star is also known to be related to the stellar age and younger stars show more rapid rotation (Skumanich 1972; Barnes 2003).”
• THE EVOLUTION OF CATACLYSMIC VARIABLES AS REVEALED BY THEIR DONOR STARS (2011, background): “Finally, Stuart Littlefair has suggested another possible explanation to us: according to some recent studies of MB in noninteracting stars (Barnes 2003, 2007, 2010; Irwin et al. 2007; also see the discussion in Section 8.5), even partly radiative stars begin their life with spin-down rates…”
• MAGNETIC BRAKING FORMULATION FOR SUN-LIKE STARS: DEPENDENCE ON DIPOLE FIELD STRENGTH AND ROTATION RATE (2012, background): “…spin-down of stars (Kraft 1967; Skumanich 1972; Soderblom 1983); the possibility of using rotational properties to measure stellar ages (“gyrochronology”; Barnes 2003a, 2010; Mamajek & Hillenbrand 2008; Meibom et al. 2011; Epstein & Pinsonneault 2012); and the correlation of stellar activity with…”
• Calibrating gyrochronology using Kepler asteroseismic targets (2015, background): “The term ‘gyrochronology’ was coined by Barnes (2003) who proposed an empirically motivated functional form for the relation between period, colour and age, P = An × a(B − V − c)b, (1) where P is rotation period (in days), A is age (in Myr), B and V are B and V band magnitudes respectively and a,…”
• PERSISTENT MAGNETIC WREATHS IN A RAPIDLY ROTATING SUN (2010, background): “The time needed for significant spindown appears to be a strong function of stellar mass (e.g., Barnes 2003; West et al. 2004): solar-mass stars slow less rapidly than somewhat less massive G and K-type stars, but still appear to lose much of their angular momentum by the time they are as old as…”
• Chromospheric Activity, Rotation, and Rotational Braking in M and L Dwarfs (2008, background): “Thus objects of ages between 10-100Myrs generally are rapidly rotating (e.g. Barnes 2003).”
• ON THE ANGULAR MOMENTUM EVOLUTION OF FULLY CONVECTIVE STARS: ROTATION PERIODS FOR FIELD M-DWARFS FROM THE MEarth TRANSIT SURVEY (2010, background): “Around the age of the Hyades (625± 50 Myr from isochrone fitting; Perryman et al. 1998), the convergence is complete and all the stars follow a t1/2 type spin-down thereafter, with rotation rate being a well-defined function of mass and age for F, G and K stars (Barnes 2003, 2007).”
• Improved angular momentum evolution model for solar-like stars II. Exploring the mass dependence (2015, unknown): “Barnes (2010) and Barnes & Kim (2010) propose a model based on gyrochronologyanalysis (Barnes 2003) and a Kawaler-modified braking law.”
• Rotation, differential rotation, and gyrochronology of active Kepler stars (2015, background): “Barnes (2003, 2007) collected rotation periods from open clusters of different ages, and identified two sequences in the color-period diagram, namely the I- and C-sequence.”
• Accretion-powered Stellar Winds. II. Numerical Solutions for Stellar Wind Torques (2008, background): “There is still progress to be made on main sequence star spins (Barnes 2003), but perhaps the largest open questions remain at the pre-mainsequence phase, which determines the “initial conditions” for the spin histories of stars.”
• Stellar winds on the main-sequence - II. The evolution of rotation and winds (2015, background): “This spread in rotation rates can be traced back to the early pre-main sequence and has the appearance that most stars lie on one of two district branches (Soderblom et al. 1993; Barnes 2003).”