Fifteen years in the high-energy life of the solar-type star HD 81809. XMM-Newton observations of a stellar activity cycle

TL;DR

This study analyzes 15 years of XMM-Newton data on HD 81809 to characterize its X-ray activity cycle, revealing a regular 7.3-year cycle and demonstrating that its corona behaves similarly to the solar case with a mixture of active regions.

Contribution

It provides the longest X-ray monitoring of a solar-like star, showing that HD 81809's coronal activity cycle is consistent with solar phenomena and can be modeled with solar-like regions.

Findings

HD 81809 exhibits a 7.3-year X-ray activity cycle.

Coronal luminosity varies by a factor of about 5 over the cycle.

Coronal behavior is consistent with an extension of solar activity patterns.

Abstract

Aims. The data set of the long-term XMM-Newton monitoring program of HD 81809 is analyzed to study its X-ray cycle, to investigate if the latter is related to the chromospheric one, to infer the structure of the corona of HD 81809, and to explore if the coronal activity of HD 81809 can be ascribed to phenomena similar to the solar ones and, therefore, considered an extension of the solar case. Methods. We analyze the observations of HD 81809 performed with XMM-Newton with a regular cadence of 6 months from 2001 to 2016 and representing one of the longest available observational baseline ($\sim 15$~yr) for a solar-like star with a well-studied chromospheric cycle (with a period of $\sim 8$~yr). We investigate the modulation of coronal luminosity and temperature and its relation with the chromospheric cycle. We interpret the data in terms of a mixture of solar-like coronal regions, adopting a methodology originally proposed to study the Sun as an X-ray star. Results. The observations show a well-defined regular cyclic modulation of the X-ray luminosity that reflects the activity level of HD 81809. The data covers approximately two cycles of coronal activity; the modulation has an amplitude of a factor of $\sim 5$ (excluding evident flares, as in the June 2002 observation) and a period of $7.3\pm 1.5$~yr, consistent with that of the chromospheric cycle. We demonstrate that the corona of HD 81809 can be interpreted as an extension of the solar case and it can be modeled with a mixture of solar-like coronal regions along the whole cycle. The activity level is mainly determined by a varying coverage of very bright active regions, similar to cores of active regions observed in the Sun. Evidence of unresolved significant flaring activity is present especially in proximity of cycle maxima.