Stability of toroidal magnetic fields in the solar tachocline and beneath

Stability of toroidal magnetic field in a stellar radiation zone is considered for the cases of uniform and differential rotation. In the rigidly rotating radiative core shortly below the tachocline, the critical magnetic field for instability is about 600 G. The unstable disturbances for slightly supercritical fields have short radial scales ∼1 Mm. Radial mixing produced by the instability is estimated to conclude that the internal field of the sun can exceed the critical value of 600 G only marginally. Otherwise, the mixing is too strong and not compatible with the observed lithium abundance. Analysis of joint instability of differential rotation and toroidal field leads to the conclusion that axisymmetric models of the laminar solar tachocline are stable to nonaxisymmetric disturbances. The question of whether sun-like stars can posses tachoclines is addressed with positive answer for stars with rotation periods shorter than about two months. (© 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

The effect of turbulent fluctuations in the interstellar gas and magnetic field on Faraday rotation

The effect of fluctuations in both the interstellar electron number density and galactic magnetic field on the propagation of high frequency radio waves is discussed in terms of the frequency dependent Faraday rotation. It is shown that when the fluctuations are representative of large scale disturbances (1–10² pc) in the interstellar medium, then the observed Faraday rotation is not a measure of the line of sight integral of the product of the magnetic field with the electron number density.Since evidence has been presented elsewhere for believing that such large scale disturbances do exist in our galaxy, some care must be exercised in the physical interpretation of Faraday rotation measurements.Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow.     

Thermosolutal-convective instability in a stellar atmosphere

The thermosolutal-convective instability of a stellar atomsphere is studied in the presence of suspended particles. The criteria for monotonic instability are derived and are found to hold good also in the presence of uniform rotation and uniform magnetic field on the thermosolutal-convective instability. The thermosolutal-convective instability of a stellar atmosphere is also studied in the presence of suspended particles and radiative transfer effects and the criteria for monotonic instability are obtained in terms of source function.     

Accretion to magnetized stars through the Rayleigh–Taylor instability: global 3D simulations

We present results of 3D simulations of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) instabilities at the accretion disc–magnetosphere boundary. The instability is Rayleigh–Taylor, and develops for a fairly broad range of accretion rates and stellar rotation rates and magnetic fields. It manifests itself in the form of tall, thin tongues of plasma that penetrate the magnetosphere in the equatorial plane. The shape and number of the tongues changes with time on the inner disc dynamical time-scale. In contrast with funnel flows, which deposit matter mainly in the polar region, the tongues deposit matter much closer to the stellar equator. The instability appears for relatively small misalignment angles, Θ≲ 30°, between the star's rotation and magnetic axes, and is associated with higher accretion rates. The hotspots and light curves during accretion through instability are generally much more chaotic than during stable accretion. The unstable state of accretion has possible implications for quasi-periodic oscillations and intermittent pulsations from accreting systems, as well as planet migration.     

On thermosolutal-convective instability in a stellar atmosphere

Thermosolutal-convective instability of a stellar atmosphere is considered. The criteria for monotonic instability are derived. The effects of a variable horizontal magnetic field and the simultaneous presence of a uniform rotation and a uniform horizontal magnetic field have been considered on the thermosolutal-convective instability. The criteria derived for monotonic instability are found to hold good in the presence of a variable horizontal magnetic field as well as in the presence of a uniform rotation and a uniform horizontal magnetic field.     

Thermal-convective-instability of a stellar atmosphere in the presence of a nonlinear magnetic field

Thermal-convective-instability of a stellar atmosphere is investigated in the presences of a nonlinear magnetic field. A model proposed by Roberts (1981) in the context of neutron stars is used. The simultaneous effect of both nonlinear magnetic field and rotation is also considered. The criteria obtained for monotonic instability generalize the criterion derived by Defouw (1970) in the absence of magnetic field and rotation.     

Thermal-convective instability of a composite rotating stellar atmosphere in the presence of a variable magnetic field

The thermal-convective instability of a composite stellar atmosphere is considered in the presence of rotation, variable horizontal magnetic field, and collisional effects. The criteria for monotonic instability are obtained which generalize the criterion derived for thermal-convective instability in the absence of above effects.     

A review of stellar flares and their characteristics

We review the flaring activity of stars across the HR-diagram. Brightenings have been reported along the entire Main Sequence and in many stars off the Main Sequence. Some stars are decidedly young, others are in advanced stages of stellar evolution. Flares are common on stars with outer convection zones and outbursts have been reported also on other types of stars, although confirmations are needed for some of them.Analyses of flare occurrence sometimes find flares to be randomly distributed in time, and sometimes indicate a tendency for flares to come in groups. Preferred active longitudes have been suggested. Recent solar results, where the occurrence rate for flares is found to exhibit a periodicity of 152 days, suggest that stellar flare data should be reanalyzed over long time baselines to see if the present confusing situation can be resolved.The radiation from stellar flares is dominated by continuum emission and about equal amounts of energy have been recorded in the optical, UV, and X-ray regions of the spectrum. In solar flares strong continuum emission is rarely recorded and a large collection of bright emission lines takes prominence. Small flares occur more frequently than large ones and the latter have longer time-scales. Flare energies can exceed 10³⁷ erg. The most productive flare stars are those where the convective envelopes occupy large volumes. Slow stellar rotation rates are believed to reduce the level when the star has been braked significantly from its young rotation rate.     

Stellar rotation and the thermomagnetic torque

The thermomagnetic torque, known to exist when a gas of polyatomic molecules experiences a temperature gradient in the presence of a magnetic field, has been investigated as a possible source of stellar rotational angular momentum. The effect does not appear to be significant during pre-mainsequence evolution. To influence stellar rotation a process must be capable of generating torques on the order of 10⁴⁰ dyn cm^–1, whereas the effect due to the thermomagnetic torque is only as large as 10¹⁷, dyn cm^–1.     

Thermosolutal-convective instability of a stellar atmosphere in the presence of suspended particles

Thermosolutal-convective instability of a stellar atmosphere is considered in the presence of suspended particles. The criteria for monotonic instability are derived which are found to hold good in the presence of uniform rotation and uniform magnetic field, separately, on the thermosolutal-convective instability in the presence of suspended particles.     

On thermal-convective instability in a stellar atmosphere with finite Larmor radius and Hall effects

The thermal-convective instability of a stellar atmosphere is considered to include rotation, finite Larmor radius and Hall effects in the presence of a uniform vertical magnetic field. The criterion for monotonic instability is found to be the same even if the above effects are included.     

Thermosolutal-convective instability of a composite plasma in a stellar atmosphere including the effects of variable magnetic field and rotation

Thermosolutal-convective instability of a composite plasma in a stellar atmosphere is considered. The effect of a variable horizontal magnetic field and the simultaneous effect of a uniform rotation and a variable horizontal magnetic field have been considered on the thermosolutal-convective instability. We have derived the sufficient conditions for the existence of monotonic instability. It is found that the criteria for monotonic instability hold good in the presence of a variable horizontal magnetic field as well as in the presence of a uniform rotation and a variable horizontal magnetic field.     

Gravitational waves from r-modes

Detectability of gravitational waves emitted by newly born, hot, rapidly rotating neutron stars as they spin down due to the r-mode instability is discussed. It is shown that differential rotation induced by r-modes plays a fundamental role in the evolution of the mode’s instability, making it more difficult to detect these gravitational waves.     

Global m= 1 instabilities and lopsidedness in disc galaxies

Lopsidedness is common in spiral galaxies. Often, there is no obvious external cause, such as an interaction with a nearby galaxy, for such features. Alternatively, the lopsidedness may have an internal cause, such as a dynamical instability. In order to explore this idea, we have developed a computer code that searches for self-consistent perturbations in razor-thin disc galaxies and performed a thorough mode-analysis of a suite of dynamical models for disc galaxies embedded in an inert dark matter halo with varying amounts of rotation and radial anisotropy.
Models with two equal-mass counter-rotating discs and fully rotating models both show growing lopsided modes. For the counter-rotating models, this is the well-known counter-rotating instability, becoming weaker as the net rotation increases. The m = 1 mode of the maximally rotating models, on the other hand, becomes stronger with increasing net rotation. This rotating m = 1 mode is reminiscent of the eccentricity instability in near-Keplerian discs.
To unravel the physical origin of these two different m = 1 instabilities, we studied the individual stellar orbits in the perturbed potential and found that the presence of the perturbation gives rise to a very rich orbital behaviour. In the linear regime, both instabilities are supported by aligned loop orbits. In the non-linear regime, other orbit families exist that can help support the modes. In terms of density waves, the counter-rotating m = 1 mode is due to a purely growing Jeans-type instability. The rotating m = 1 mode, on the other hand, grows as a result of the swing amplifier working inside the resonance cavity that extends from the disc centre out to the radius where non-rotating waves are stabilized by the model's outwardly rising Q profile.     

Diurnal thermal tides in a non-synchronized hot Jupiter

We perform a linear analysis to investigate the dynamical response of a non-synchronized hot Jupiter to stellar irradiation. In this work, we consider the diurnal Fourier harmonic of the stellar irradiation acting at the top of a radiative layer of a hot Jupiter with no clouds and winds. In the absence of the Coriolis force, the diurnal thermal forcing can excite internal waves propagating into the planet's interior when the thermal forcing period is longer than the sound crossing time of the planet's surface. When the Coriolis effect is taken into consideration, the latitude-dependent stellar heating can excite weak internal waves (g modes) and/or strong baroclinic Rossby waves (buoyant r modes) depending on the asynchrony of the planet. When the planet spins faster than its orbital motion (i.e. retrograde thermal forcing), these waves carry negative angular momentum and are damped by radiative loss as they propagate downwards from the upper layer of the radiative zone. As a result, angular momentum is transferred from the lower layer of the radiative zone to the upper layer and generates a vertical shear. We estimate the resulting internal torques for different rotation periods based on the parameters of HD 209458b.     

Gravitational radiation of stellar configurations consisting of incompressible fluid

This article discusses the gravitational radiation of rotating and oscillating stellar configurations with an incompressible fluid equation of state. The method used here makes it possible to determine the frequencies and amplitudes of the gravitational waves for arbitrary values of the central densities. At the densities corresponding to neutron stars, the major parameters of the gravitational radiation are consistent with previous results from more realistic models. Depending on the central density, stellar configurations with an incompressible fluid can emit gravitational waves over a wide range of frequencies, from 10⁻² to 10⁴ Hz. __________ Translated from Astrofizika, Vol. 49, No. 2, pp. 243–250 (May 2006).     

Stellar winds and globules in Hii regions

The interaction of a plane-parallel hypersonic stellar wind with a globule in an Hii region is considered in two approximations. In both approximations, the ionization front on the globule remains strong-D type, and a flow pattern containing two oppositely facing shock waves results. In the first approximation, the structure of the shocked region is calculated assuming that globule gas and stellar wind gas mix well and move at the same velocity. However, this assumption results in a very thick shocked layer and the assumption of good mixing is consequently not well justified. This approximation provides an upper limit on the gas velocities expected in the shocked gas which originated at the globule. In the second approximation, the stellar wind merely applies pressure to balance the momentum flux in the globule gas. The structure of the shocked region is calculated on the assumption that a tangential discontinuity exists between shocked stellar wind and shocked glubule gas. Structures may be produced having velocities ～10 km s^?1 and emission measures ～10³ cm^?6 pc with reasonable stellar luminosities and mass loss rates.     

Instability of radial modes at the Wolf-Rayet evolutionary stage

The evolution of a Population-I star with an initial mass M _ZAMS = 60 M _⊙ has been calculated. At the stage when a red giant turns into an early-type helium star, the vast bulk of the stellar mass is concentrated in a compact core surrounded by an extended envelope that is unstable with respect to radial oscillations. The range of effective temperatures within which the instability arises extends to T _eff ? 10⁵ K. For the models corresponding to the Wolf-Rayet evolutionary stage (5 × 10⁴ K ≤ T _eff ≤ 1.05 × 10⁵ K), hydrodynamic calculations of self-exciting radial stellar pulsations have been performed. The pulsational instability develops in a time interval comparable to the dynamic timescale. Once the amplitude has ceased to grow, the pulsational motions are nonlinear traveling waves propagating from the core boundary to the stellar surface. The velocity amplitude of the outer layers is 500 km s^?1 < ΔU < 10³ km s^?1, depending on the effective temperature. During the evolution of a helium star, the mean ratio of the maximum expansion velocity of the outer layers to the local escape velocity decreases and lies within the range 0.25 < U _max/v _esc < 0.6 for the models considered. The nonlinearity of the stellar pulsations is responsible for the increase in the mean radius \(\bar r\) of the Lagrangian layers compared to the equilibrium radius r _eq. The effect of the increase in mean radius decreases with rising effective temperature from\(\bar r\)/r ～ 10 at T _eff = 7 × 10⁴ K to \(\bar r\)/r ≈ 2 at T _eff = 10⁵ K. The radial pulsation periods for the models considered lie within the range 0.1 day ≤ Π ≤ 1.6 day and the amplitude of the bolometric magnitude variations does not exceed 0 _. ^m 2.     

Nonlinear simulations of magnetic instabilities in stellar radiation zones: The role of rotation and shear

Using the 3-dimensional ASH code, we have studied numerically the instabilities that occur in stellar radiation zones in presence of large-scale magnetic fields, rotation and large-scale shear. We confirm that some configurations are linearly unstable, as predicted by Tayler and collaborators, and we determine the saturation level of the instability. We find that rotation modifies the peak of the most unstable wave number of the poloidal instability but not its growth rate as much as in the case of the m = 1 toroidal instability for which it is changed to σ = /Ω. Further in the case with rotation and shear, we found no sign of the dynamo mechanism suggested recently by Spruit even though we possess the essential ingredients (Tayler's m = 1 instability and a large scale shear) supposedly at work. (© 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)