Quantifying the ngVLA's Contribution to Exo-Space Weather: Results of a Community Studies Report Next Generation VLA Memo #31

TL;DR

The ngVLA will significantly advance understanding of stellar winds, stellar activity, and their impact on exo-space weather by enabling detailed radio observations of cool stars, bridging current observational gaps.

Contribution

This report highlights the potential of the ngVLA to detect and characterize stellar winds and radio-active cool stars, advancing the study of exo-space weather and stellar astrophysics.

Findings

ngVLA will detect stellar winds and constrain mass loss rates

Enables comprehensive study of radio-active cool stars

Improves understanding of stellar contribution to exo-space weather

Abstract

A forward-looking facility such as the next generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) requires forward-looking science. The ngVLA will enable stellar wind detections or robust constraints on upper limits sufficient to bridge the gap between current radio upper limits on cool stellar mass loss and current indirect estimates of stellar mass loss from astrospheric measurements. This will aid in understanding the interplay between the rotational spindown of stars and wind mass loss rates, important for an understanding not just of stellar astrophysics but the impact on planet formation and planetary dynamos. Radio observations are currently the only way to explore accelerated particles in cool stellar environments. The upgraded sensitivity of the ngVLA will enable the detection and characterization of essentially all classes of radio-active cool stars in the galaxy. This will open up new fields of study and contribute to the understanding of the stellar contribution to exo-space weather, especially with the emphasis on sensitivity above a frequency of about 10 GHz, where the transition to optically thin gyrosynchrotron emission occurs. These topics connect and extend the key science topics in the cradle of life, in an area which there is both high academic as well as popular interest, and which is expected to continue into the next several decades.