Limits on detectability of mass loss from cool dwarfs

Details Limits on detectability of mass loss from cool dwarfs Limits on detectability of mass loss from cool dwarfs

May 1992

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992aas...180.6006m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, 180th AAS Meeting, #60.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 24, p.826

Physics

Scientific paper

Recent spectroscopic evidence supports the theoretical expectation that certain cool dwarfs may have stellar winds with dot {M} values several orders of magnitude larger than the solar rate. For large enough values of dot {M}, the emission from the wind is expected to have a spectrum which, at low enough frequencies, becomes a power law, S_ν ~ nu (alpha ) with alpha ~ 0.7. Data from IRAS and VLA suggest that such a spectrum may in fact occur in certain M dwarfs: a key test of the wind spectrum would be provided if the stars could be detected at lambda ~ 1 mm. We show that the dot {M} required to ensure power law emission is a few times 10(-10) Msun \ yr(-1) . With dot {M} of this order, fluxes at lambda ~ 1 mm would be tens of mJy. Using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, we have tested this prediction on several stars: the data are suggestive but are near the limits of detection. Confirmation of our estimates will be important for studies of evolution of low mass stars and for interstellar medium (ISM) physics: if even a few percent of all M dwarfs are losing mass at the above rates, the mass balance of the ISM will be dominated by M dwarfs. Moreover, if flares on these stars are accompanied by mass ejecta, the ISM may become contaminated with deuterium produced in the surface layers of the star by energetic protons.

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