Quantification of the environment of cool stars using numerical simulations

TL;DR

This paper uses advanced 3D simulations to analyze stellar winds from cool stars, revealing how stellar properties influence wind characteristics and aiding the development of scaling laws in the absence of direct observations.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive grid of 3D stellar wind models for cool stars, identifying key dependencies of wind properties on stellar parameters.

Findings

Stellar winds vary significantly with stellar mass, radius, rotation, and magnetic field.

The models help establish scaling laws for stellar wind properties.

Results improve understanding of star-planet interactions and habitability conditions.

Abstract

Stars interact with their planets through gravitation, radiation, and magnetic fields. Although magnetic activity decreases with time, reducing associated high-energy (e.g., coronal XUV emission, flares), stellar winds persist throughout the entire evolution of the system. Their cumulative effect will be dominant for both the star and for possible orbiting exoplanets, affecting in this way the expected habitability conditions. However, observations of stellar winds in low-mass main sequence stars are limited, which motivates the usage of models as a pathway to explore how these winds look like and how they behave. Here we present the results from a grid of 3D state-of-the-art stellar wind models for cool stars (spectral types F to M). We explore the role played by the different stellar properties (mass, radius, rotation, magnetic field) on the characteristics of the resulting magnetized winds (mass and angular momentum losses, terminal speeds, wind topology) and isolate the most important dependencies between the parameters involved. These results will be used to establish scaling laws that will complement the lack of stellar wind observational constraints.