English

The magnetic future of the Sun

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2017-12-07 v1

Abstract

We analyze space- and ground-based data for the old (7.0±0.37.0\pm0.3~Gyr) solar analogs 16 Cyg A and B. The stars were observed with the Cosmic Origins UV Spectrographs on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) on 23 October 2015 and 3 February 2016 respectively, and with the Chandra X-ray Observatory on 7 February 2016. Time-series data in \ion{Ca}{2} data are used to place the UV data in context. The UV spectra of 18 Sco (3.7±0.5\pm0.5 Gyr), the Sun (4.6±0.04\pm0.04 Gyr) and α\alpha Cen A (5.40.2+1.25.4_{-0.2}^{+1.2} Gyr), appear remarkably similar, pointing to a convergence of magnetic heating rates for G2 main-sequence stars older than 24\approx 2-4 Gyr. But the B component's X-ray (0.3-2.5 keV) flux lies 20×\times below a well-known minimum level reported by Schmitt. As reported for α\alpha~Cen~A, the coronal temperature probably lies below that detectable in soft X-rays. No solar UV flux spectra of comparable resolution to stellar data exist, but they are badly needed for comparison with stellar data. Center-to-limb (C-L) variations are re-evaluated for lines such as \ion{Ca}{2} through to X-rays, with important consequences for observing activity cycles in such features. We also call into question work that has mixed solar intensity-intensity statistics with flux-flux relations of stars.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1710.05088,
  title  = {The magnetic future of the Sun},
  author = {Philip Judge and RIcky Egeland and Travis Metcalfe and Edward Guinan and Scott Engel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.05088},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

to appear in ApJ