Multi-instrumental view of magnetic fields and activity of $\epsilon$ Eridani with SPIRou, NARVAL, and TESS

TL;DR

This study combines multi-instrument observations of $ ext{epsilon}$ Eridani to analyze its magnetic field, activity, and surface dynamics, revealing a weak but axisymmetric large-scale magnetic field with a significant toroidal component.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive multi-wavelength analysis of $ ext{epsilon}$ Eridani's magnetic properties, including new measurements of magnetic flux and field geometry, and insights into its activity evolution.

Findings

Detected a surface magnetic field of 1.90 kG with a 12.5% filling factor.

Observed non-rotational evolution in magnetic and chromospheric activity over two months.

Derived a surface differential rotation timescale of approximately 57 days.

Abstract

We report on observations of the active K2 dwarf $\epsilon$ Eridani based on contemporaneous SPIRou, NARVAL, and TESS data obtained over two months in late 2018, when the activity of the star was reported to be in a non-cyclic phase. We first recover the fundamental parameters of the target from both visible and nIR spectral fitting. The large-scale magnetic field is investigated from polarimetric data. From unpolarized spectra, we estimate the total magnetic flux through Zeeman broadening of magnetically sensitive nIR lines and the chromospheric emission using the CaII H & K lines. The TESS photometric monitoring is modeled with pseudo-periodic Gaussian Process Regression. Fundamental parameters of $\epsilon$ Eridani derived from visible and near-infrared wavelengths provide us with consistent results, also in agreement with published values. We report a progressive increase of macroturbulence towards larger nIR wavelengths. Zeeman broadening of individual lines highlights an unsigned surface magnetic field $B_{\rm mono} = 1.90 \pm 0.13$ kG, with a filling factor $f = 12.5 \pm 1.7$% (unsigned magnetic flux $Bf = 237 \pm 36$ G). The large-scale magnetic field geometry, chromospheric emission, and broadband photometry display clear signs of non-rotational evolution over the course of data collection. Characteristic decay times deduced from the light curve and longitudinal field measurements fall in the range 30-40 d, while the characteristic timescale of surface differential rotation, as derived through the evolution of the magnetic geometry, is equal to $57 \pm 5$ d. The large-scale magnetic field exhibits a combination of properties not observed previously for $\epsilon$ Eridani, with a surface field among the weakest previously reported, but also mostly axisymmetric, and dominated by a toroidal component.