Evidence of New Magnetic Transitions in Late-Type Dwarfs from Gaia DR2

TL;DR

This study uses Gaia DR2 data to identify multiple magnetic surface regimes in low-mass stars, revealing rapid transitions and bimodal distributions in rotation and amplitude, which enhance understanding of stellar magnetic evolution.

Contribution

It provides the first evidence of rapid surface inhomogeneity transitions in low-mass stars near break-up velocity using Gaia DR2 data.

Findings

Bimodal amplitude distribution with a gap at P ≤ 2 d.

Two clusters of low-amplitude stars at P ≈ 5-10 d and P ≤ 0.5 d.

Correlation between amplitude-period multimodality and star position in period-magnitude diagram.

Abstract

The second Gaia data release contains the identification of 147 535 low-mass ($\le 1.4 M_{\odot}$) rotational modulation variable candidates on (or close to) the main sequence, together with their rotation period and modulation amplitude. The richness, the period and amplitude range, and the photometric precision of this sample make it possible to unveil, for the first time, signatures of different surface inhomogeneity regimes in the amplitude-period density diagram. The modulation amplitude distribution shows a clear bimodality, with an evident gap at periods $P \le 2$ d. The low amplitude branch, in turn, shows a period bimodality with a main clustering at periods $P \approx$ 5 - 10 d and a secondary clustering of ultra-fast rotators at $P \le 0.5$ d. The amplitude-period multimodality is correlated with the position in the period-absolute magnitude (or period-color) diagram, with the low- and high-amplitude stars occupying different preferential locations. Here we argue that such a multimodality represents a further evidence of the existence of different regimes of surface inhomogeneities in young and middle-age low-mass stars and we lay out possible scenarios for their evolution, which manifestly include rapid transitions from one regime to another. In particular, the data indicate that stars spinning up close to break-up velocity undergo a very rapid change in their surface inhomogeneities configuration, which is revealed here for the first time. The multimodality can be exploited to identify field stars of age $\sim$ 100 -- 600 Myr belonging to the slow-rotator low-amplitude sequence, for which age can be estimated from the rotation period via gyrochronology relationships.