Radio Studies of Stellar Coronae, Winds, and Circumstellar Environments

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

AST-0206367 PI Brown The study of stellar radio emission provides complementary and often unique insights into physical processes occurring in stellar coronae, winds, magnetospheres, and circumstellar environments. Radio observations are unique in their ability to reveal the presence of nonthermal processes in stellar atmospheres, as well as the magnetic field strength and structure at or close to the site of magnetic energy release. The investigations to be carried out here will allow significant advances in the study of the phenomenolgy and physical processes related to: the mass loss process from evolved giant and supergiant stars, including the wind acceleration process and the wind driving mechanism(s); the coronal structure of active binary stars and the physical processes occurring during the impulsive and cooling phases of the large are events in these systems; the thermal and nonthermal radio emission of main sequence stars of differing mass and how these properties change as such stars evolve; the fundamental processes controlling the level of radio emission and stellar activity in general as a function of basic stellar parameters and evolutionary state; and finally, the physical and geometrical relationship between thermal processes in stellar X-ray coronae and nonthermal coronal processes observed in the radio. ***