Deconfusing the Confusogram: Getting New Insights from Zeeman Doppler Imaging

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new visualization method for Zeeman Doppler Imaging data, improving interpretability of stellar magnetic field topologies and variability across multiple observations.

Contribution

The authors present a novel visualization approach that enhances understanding of ZDI results and variability, addressing limitations of the traditional confusogram method.

Findings

New visualization method for ZDI data

Demonstrated variability analysis on M dwarf stars

Enhanced interpretability of stellar magnetic topologies

Abstract

Zeeman Doppler Imaging is a powerful tool for characterizing the strength and topology of stellar magnetic fields. In this research note, we present a new way to visualize the typical results from ZDI for an ensemble of stars, addressing some of the concerns with the standard `confusogram' approach to illustrating the data. Our publically available plotting methods further enable an accessible means to consider variability in the inferred magnetic field topologies from repeated observations, as we demonstrate with the literature ZDI data on M dwarfs.