The Active Lives of M Dwarfs: The Activity, Dynamical and Metallicity Evolution of Most Milky Way Stars

Details The Active Lives of M Dwarfs: The Activity, Dynamical and Metallicity Evolution of Most Milky Way Stars The Active Lives of M Dwarfs: The Activity, Dynamical and Metallicity Evolution of Most Milky Way Stars

Dec 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...211.2106w&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #211, #21.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.772

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present the results from a study of the dynamics and magnetic activity of M dwarfs using the largest spectroscopic sample of low-mass stars ever assembled. The age at which strong surface magnetic activity ceases in M dwarfs has been inferred to have a strong dependence on mass (spectral type, surface temperature) and explains previous results showing a large increase in the fraction of active stars at later spectral types. Using spectral observations of more than 40,000 M dwarfs from the SDSS, we show that the fraction of active stars decreases as a function of vertical distance from the Galactic plane, and that the magnitude of this decrease changes significantly for different M spectral types. Adopting a simple dynamical model for thin disk vertical heating, we assign an age for the activity decline at each spectral type, and thus determine an activity-age relation for M dwarfs. These results provide constraints for dynamo models that seek to describe the production of surface magnetic fields in low mass stars. In addition, we will show how M dwarfs can be used to probe both the metallicity evolution as well as the dynamical heating and structure of the Milky Way thin disk.

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