Solar Analogs as a Tool to Understand the Sun

TL;DR

This paper discusses how solar analogs serve as a valuable tool for understanding the Sun's behaviors, focusing on identifying similar stars and studying their properties to infer solar processes.

Contribution

It introduces a series of studies on solar analogs emphasizing the importance of stellar observations and statistical analysis of their properties related to the Sun.

Findings

Identification of new solar analogs

Characterization of activity, magnetism, and granulation in these stars

Framework for statistical dependence on stellar parameters

Abstract

Solar analogs, broadly defined as stars similar to the Sun in mass or spectral type, provide a useful laboratory for exploring the range of Sun-like behaviors and exploring the physical mechanisms underlying some of the Sun's most elusive processes like coronal heating and the dynamo. We describe a series of heliophysics-motivated, but astrophysics-like studies of solar analogs. We argue for a range of stellar observations, including (a) the identification and fundamental parameter determination of new solar analogs, and (b) characterizing emergent properties like activity, magnetism, and granulation. These parameters should be considered in the framework of statistical studies of the dependences of these observables on fundamental stellar parameters like mass, metallicity, and rotation.