POSTER PAPER 7.01
After the Flare: The Perplexing Spectrum of FK Com
Derek L. Buzasi, David P. Huenemoerder, Heather L. Preston
Institute: United States Air Force Academy
Institute: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Contact Email: derek.buzasi@usafa.af.mil
Abstract:
FK Com, whose peculiarities were first noted by Merrill (1948), is a single
G-type giant rotating near the breakup velocity
(vsini = 162.5 km s-1; see Huenemoerder et al. 1993).
The angular momentum derived from this rapid rotation, which
corresponds to a period of 2.4 days (Chugainov 1976), exceeds that possible for
a main sequence progenitor, and there is no
detected orbital motion, so the hypothesis has been advanced that FK Com is in
fact a recently coalesced binary (see,
e.g. Ramsey et al 1981, Huenemoerder et al. 1993). FK Com thus
provides a unique laboratory in which to study the
stellar dynamo under extreme conditions in a single star, independent of
interactions due to a binary companion. In this
paper, we discuss recent Chandra HETG observations of this unusual object.
Index Keywords: FK Com; HD 117555; Chandra; Corona; X-ray
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Manuscript submitted: 2001-Sep-25
"The Future of Cool-Star Astrophysics", 2003, Eds. A. Brown,
G. M. Harper, & T. R. Ayres.
Proceedings of 12th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems,
& The Sun,
© 2003 University of Colorado.