Structure and Evolution of Pre-Main Sequence Stars
Name
Canizares-Structure and Evolution.pdf
Size
2.45 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
f2dff5567c704015f7ac30361ba88e67
Author(s)
Schulz, Norbert S.
Allen, Glenn E.
Bautz, Mark W.
Canizares, Claude R.
Davis, John E.
Dewey, Dan
Huenemoerder, David P.
Heilmann, Ralf K.
Houck, John C.
Marshall, Herman Lee
Date Issued
2009
Journal
Astro2010: The Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Citation
Glenn Allen et al. "Structure and Evolution of Pre-Main Sequence." Astro2010: The Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey, National Academies 2010.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Low-mass pre-main sequence (PMS) stars are strong and variable X-ray emitters, as has been well established by EINSTEIN and ROSAT observatories. It was originally believed that this emission was of thermal nature and primarily originated from coronal activity (magnetically confined loops, in analogy with Solar activity) on contracting young stars. Broadband spectral analysis showed that the emission was not isothermal and that elemental abundances were non-Solar. The resolving power of the Chandra and XMM X-ray gratings spectrometers have provided the first, tantalizing details concerning the physical conditions such as temperatures, densities, and abundances that characterize the X-ray emitting regions of young star. These existing high resolution spectrometers, however, simply do not have the effective area to measure diagnostic lines for a large number of PMS stars over required to answer global questions such as: how does magnetic activity in PMS stars differ from that of main sequence stars, how do they evolve, what determines the population structure and activity in stellar clusters, and how does the activity influence the evolution of protostellar disks. Highly resolved (R>3000) X-ray spectroscopy at orders of magnitude greater efficiency than currently available will provide major advances in answering these questions. This requires the ability to resolve the key diagnostic emission lines with a precision of better than 100 km/s.
MIT Department
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
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DOI of Published Version
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/astro2010/DetailFileDisplay.aspx?id=40
