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Aspects of Long-Term Variability in Sun and Stars

  • Conference paper
Solar Phenomena in Stars and Stellar Systems

Part of the book series: NATO Advanced Study Institutes Series ((ASIC,volume 68))

Abstract

Evidence of long-term solar variability is reviewed, including historical data and the tree-ring record of radiocarbon. Epochs of suppressed activity like the Maunder Minimum are shown to be frequent occurences of the last several thousand years, but without no obvious period of recurrence. Weak evidence exists for the 11-year cycle as early as Medieval times, although with insufficient accuracy to establish long-term phase stability.

The evidence for secular and evolutionary changes in the dynamo state of solar-like stars is reviewed, It is found that Ca+ emission in main sequence stars is age dependent and decays as the square-root of main sequence age. Chromospheric emission and hence magnetic flux is linearly related to rotation rate in main sequence stars; this is believed to represent a fundamental dynamo relation. Angular momentum loss by magnetic braking, produced by erupted magnetic flux that ‘escapes’ past the Alfvenic point in coronal winds may produce the observed secular changes. It is suggested that the dynamo increases in strength in hotter stars and that the break in the angular momentum distribution is due to a ‘closing off’ of the coronae of early F-type stars.

The amplitude of the dynamo cycle is similar in old and young stars and is color independent. Chaotic fluctuation appears to increase as one moves ‘up’ the main sequence to hotter stars. A color and age independence of dynamo periods argues that the convective zone thickness is the determining factor. The recent suggestion that the dynamic state of the atmospheres of solar-like stars is age dependent is not found to be supported by the observational data. Extant non-linear calculations of the dynamo yield a scaling law that can be tested against stellar observations.

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  1. High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, 80307, USA

    A. Skumanich & John A. Eddy

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  1. A. Skumanich
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Verrieres-le-Buisson, France

    Roger M. Bonnet

  2. Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass., USA

    Andrea K. Dupree

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Skumanich, A., Eddy, J.A. (1981). Aspects of Long-Term Variability in Sun and Stars. In: Bonnet, R.M., Dupree, A.K. (eds) Solar Phenomena in Stars and Stellar Systems. NATO Advanced Study Institutes Series, vol 68. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8479-0_20

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