Weak magnetic fields of intermediate-mass stars
Abstract
We present the result of a highly sensitive spectropolarimetric study dedicated to intermediate mass stars. We report the detection of sub-gauss surface magnetic fields on the normal, rapidly-rotating A-type star Vega and on the moderately-rotating Am star Sirius A. These magnetic detections constitute the first evidence that tepid stars that do not belong to the class of Ap/Bp stars can also host magnetized photospheres, suggesting that a significant fraction of stars in this mass regime are magnetic. We present here the observational clues gathered so far to progress towards understanding the physical processes at the origin of this newly identified Vega-like magnetism.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1109.6888,
title = {Weak magnetic fields of intermediate-mass stars},
author = {P. Petit and F. Lignières and G. A. Wade and M. Aurière and D. Alina and T. Böhm and A. Oza},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1109.6888},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Submitted to Astronomical Notes (proceedings of the 7th Potsdam Thinkshop on "Magnetic Fields in Stars and Exoplanets")