On the Intrinsic Difficulty of Producing Stellar Coronae with Acoustic Waves

Abstract

We discuss theoretical limits on the potential of acoustic waves to produce coronae around inactive solar-like stars. For a star of solar mass and radius, short-period shock waves (which are produced most efficiently in the convection zone) could generate a corona only for base pressures and energy fluxes that are smaller than the observed values by several orders of magnitude. The energy budget of solar coronal holes could be supplied only by shock waves of extremely long periods (≈ 2P_a), which are difficult to produce in solar-like stars, and which suffer from propagation restrictions in the photosphere and chromosphere. This fundamental difficulty to produce coronae with acoustic waves is even aggravated towards stars of smaller gravity.