Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

Published in

American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal, 1(760), p. 9, 2012

DOI: 10.1088/0004-637x/760/1/9

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Mass loss in pre-main sequence stars via coronal mass ejections and implications for angular momentum loss

Journal article published in 2012 by Alicia N. Aarnio ORCID, Sean P. Matt, Keivan G. Stassun
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Red circle
Preprint: archiving forbidden
Red circle
Postprint: archiving forbidden
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

We develop an empirical model to estimate mass-loss rates via coronal mass ejections (CMEs) for solar-type pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars. Our method estimates the CME mass-loss rate from the observed energies of PMS X-ray flares, using our empirically determined relationship between solar X-ray flare energy and CME mass: log(M_CME [g]) = 0.63 x log(E_flare [erg]) - 2.57. Using masses determined for the largest flaring magnetic structures observed on PMS stars, we suggest that this solar-calibrated relationship may hold over 10 orders of magnitude in flare energy and 7 orders of magnitude in CME mass. The total CME mass-loss rate we calculate for typical solar-type PMS stars is in the range 1e-12 to 1e-9 M_sun/yr. We then use these CME mass-loss rate estimates to infer the attendant angular momentum loss leading up to the main sequence. Assuming the CME outflow rate for a typical ~1 M_sun T Tauri star is 1e-10 M_sun/yr, as permitted by our calculations, the CME spin-down torque may influence the stellar spin evolution after an age of a few Myr. ; Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, accepted to the ApJ