Testing Models of Accretion-driven Coronal Heating and Stellar Wind Acceleration for T Tauri Stars

TL;DR

This paper develops models for accretion-driven coronal heating and stellar wind acceleration in T Tauri stars, comparing predictions with observations to understand their energetic processes.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive set of models for accretion, wind, and coronal regions in T Tauri stars, integrating solar-like turbulence-driven heating mechanisms.

Findings

Predicted wind mass loss rates are slightly below observed values.

X-ray luminosities from models generally match observations.

High accretion stars' X-ray emission is dominated by hot coronal loops.

Abstract

Classical T Tauri stars are pre-main-sequence objects that undergo simultaneous accretion, wind outflow, and coronal X-ray emission. The impact of plasma on the stellar surface from magnetospheric accretion streams is likely to be a dominant source of energy and momentum in the upper atmospheres of these stars. This paper presents a set of models for the dynamics and heating of three distinct regions on T Tauri stars that are affected by accretion: (1) the shocked plasmas directly beneath the magnetospheric accretion streams, (2) stellar winds that are accelerated along open magnetic flux tubes, and (3) closed magnetic loops that resemble the Sun's coronal active regions. For the loops, a self-consistent model of coronal heating was derived from numerical simulations of solar field-line tangling and turbulent dissipation. Individual models are constructed for the properties of 14 well-observed stars in the Taurus-Auriga star-forming region. Predictions for the wind mass loss rates are, on average, slightly lower than the observations, which suggests that disk winds or X-winds may also contribute to the measured outflows. For some of the stars, however, the modeled stellar winds do appear to contribute significantly to the measured mass fluxes. Predictions for X-ray luminosities from the shocks and loops are in general agreement with existing observations. The stars with the highest accretion rates tend to have X-ray luminosities dominated by the high-temperature (5-10 MK) loops. The X-ray luminosities for the stars having lower accretion rates are dominated by the cooler accretion shocks.