Nordhaus
First Name
Jason
Middle Initial
T
Last Name
Nordhaus
Department
Science and Mathematics
Scholarship Year
2025
Research Center
Non-Center Based
Scholarship Type
Journal Paper
Contributors List
C. Gehan, J. Nordhaus, J. Tayar, J. Yu, L. Gizon, M. Bazot, P. Gaulme, R. Cameron, S. Bi, S. Hekker, S. Murphy, T. Bedding, Y. Chen, Y. Ting, Z. Han
Project Title
Enhanced magnetic activity in rapidly rotating binary stars
Start Date - Month
January
Start Date - Year
2025
End Date Anticipated - Month
July
End Date Anticipated - Year
2025
End Date Actual - Month
July
End Date Actual - Year
2025
Review Types
Refereed
Student Assistance
None
Projected Cost
$0.00
Funding Source
Grant
Resulting Product
Refereed Paper
Citation

Yu, J., et al. "Enhanced magnetic activity in rapidly rotating binary stars." Nature Astronomy 9. (2025): 1045-1052. Web. £

Abstract

Stellar activity is fundamental to stellar evolution and the formation and habitability of exoplanets. Magnetic surface activity is driven by the interaction between convective motions and rotation in cool stars, resulting in a dynamo process. In single stars, activity increases with rotation rate until it saturates for stars with rotation periods Prot 3-10 d. However, the mechanism responsible for saturation remains unclear. Observations indicate that red giants in binary systems that are in spin-orbit resonance exhibit stronger chromospheric activity than single stars with similar rotation rates, suggesting that tidal flows can influence surface activity. Here, we investigate the chromospheric activity of main-sequence binary stars to understand the impact of tidal forces on saturation phenomena. For binaries with 0.5 Prot (d) 1, mainly contact binaries that share a common thermal envelope, we find enhanced activity rather than saturation. This result supports theoretical predictions that a large-scale α-ω dynamo during common-envelope evolution can generate strong magnetic fields. We also observe supersaturation in chromospheric activity, a phenomenon tentatively noted previously in coronal activity, where activity levels fall below saturation and decrease with shorter rotation periods. Our findings emphasize the importance of studying stellar activity in stars with extreme properties compared with the Sun's.

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