POSTER PAPER 6.08

The X-ray Corona of AB Dor
M. Jardine, K. Wood, A.C. Cameron, J.-F. Donati

Institute: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews
Institute: Laboratoire dAstrophysique, Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees
Contact Email: mmj@st-andrews.ac.uk

Abstract: We use surface magnetic maps from Zeeman-Doppler imaging to extrapolate the coronal magnetic field of the young solar-like star AB Dor (Prot)= 0.514 days). We assume that the coronal field is potential and find that much of the corona is filled with open magnetic field lines. We calculate the pressure and density within the corona, assuming that the gas is isothermal (T=107 K) and in hydrostatic equilibrium. Using a Monte Carlo radiative transfer code we determine the X-ray emission measure and rotational modulation. We find that the open field regions can cause the observed rotational modulation of 5%-15% (Kurster et al. 1997) even for an optically thin corona that extends to over 3Rstar. The corona is highly structured with a low filling factor (0.1% to 1%). By varying the base density, we find that densities in excess of 1010 cm-3 are needed to explain the observed emission measures of 1052 -- 1053 cm-3 (Vilhu et al. 2001).

The X-ray Corona of AB Dor [PDF - Type 1 fonts]

The X-ray Corona of AB Dor [PS]


Index Keywords: AB Dor; Doppler Imaging; MHD; Corona

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Manuscript submitted: 2001-Sep-06
"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.