Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2011-10-26
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
19 pages, accepted refereed invited conference review for the proceedings of the 7th Potsdam thinkshop: magnetic fields in sta
Scientific paper
Traditionally models of accretion of gas on to T Tauri stars have assumed a dipole stellar magnetosphere, partly for simplicity, but also due to the lack of information about their true magnetic field topologies. Before and since the first magnetic maps of an accreting T Tauri star were published in 2007 a new generation of magnetospheric accretion models have been developed that incorporate multipole magnetic fields. Three-dimensional models of the large-scale stellar magnetosphere with an observed degree of complexity have been produced via numerical field extrapolation from observationally derived T Tauri magnetic maps. Likewise, analytic and magnetohydrodynamic models with multipolar stellar magnetic fields have been produced. In this conference review article we compare and contrast the numerical field extrapolation and analytic approaches, and argue that the large-scale magnetospheres of some (but not all) accreting T Tauri stars can be well described by tilted dipole plus tilted octupole field components. We further argue that the longitudinal field curve, whether derived from accretion related emission lines, or from photospheric absorption lines, provides poor constrains on the large-scale magnetic field topology and that detailed modeling of the rotationally modulated Stokes V signal is required to recover the true field complexity. We conclude by examining the advantages, disadvantages and limitations of both the field extrapolation and analytic approaches, and also those of magnetohydrodynamic models.
Donati Jean-Francois
Gregory Scott G.
No associations
LandOfFree
Analytic and numerical models of the 3D multipolar magnetospheres of pre-main sequence stars does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Analytic and numerical models of the 3D multipolar magnetospheres of pre-main sequence stars, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Analytic and numerical models of the 3D multipolar magnetospheres of pre-main sequence stars will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-718054