Dupree, Andrea K.

Contact Email: dupree@cfa.harvard.edu
Institute: CfA
Presentation: Review Speaker: Monday
Title: The Solar-Stellar Connection: A Little History
Abstract: The Cool Stars Workshops originated with simple motivation: take the physics and concepts learned from the Sun and apply these to understand the stars - and the rest of the universe. We wanted to close the gap between the solar and stellar communities and treat the Sun and stars as the astrophysical objects that they are, confronting us with tough problems - the real world, up close and in detail. This idea may have been a rather cheeky presumption but the synergy has been largely successful. Boundary conditions defined by a single inactive star of middle age now extend to objects with enlarged parameter space. We can stretch fundamental stellar properties: mass, temperature, gravity, age, angular momentum, abundances and companions - both stellar and non-stellar - and challenge concepts developed for the Sun to see if they are sufficiently robust to survive in the diversity presented by the stars. Many stellar analogues of solar phenomena have appeared, as this Workshop demonstrates. Yet a substantial number of solar-stellar dis-connections have also emerged which can serve to confront theoretical understanding - and maybe introduce new physics. The evolution of the solar-stellar connection will be traced using the lens of two decades of Cool Stars Workshops. New capabilities in observing facilities (ground and space) and computational power will make possible future discoveries, insights, and synthesis. New objects and relationships, new applications of physics, and horizons expanded beyond our local neighborhood will mark the exiting decades hence.