A Semi-Empirical Estimate of Solar EUV Evolution from 10 Myr to 10 Gyr

TL;DR

This study models the evolution of solar EUV radiation from 10 million to 10 billion years, revealing a two-phase decay pattern and implications for planetary atmospheres and habitability.

Contribution

It provides a semi-empirical model of EUV flux evolution for solar-type stars based on new and archival Hubble data, extending understanding of stellar radiation history.

Findings

EUV activity follows a saturated plateau then decays as a power law.

EUV flux at 1 AU varies from 100x to 0.3x the current solar level over time.

EUV luminosity surpasses soft X-ray luminosity after about 1 Gyr.

Abstract

The extreme-ultraviolet (EUV; 100 -- 911 \AA) spectra of F, G, K, and M stars provide diagnostics of the stellar chromosphere through the corona, with line and continuum formation temperatures spanning roughly 10$^{4}$ - 10$^{7}$ K. The EUV stellar spectrum in turn drives atmospheric photochemistry and numerous escape processes on orbiting planets. We present a new study of the EUV history of solar-type stars, using new and archival {\it Hubble Space Telescope} observations of solar analogs (T$_{\odot}$ $\pm$ 150 K for stars older than 100 Myr) and ``Young Suns" (age $<$ 100 Myr) that will evolve into main sequence early G-type stars to predict the 90 -- 360 \AA\ EUV flux from a sample of 23 stars. We find that the EUV activity evolution for solar-type stars follows a two-component behavior: a saturated L(EUV)/L$_{bol}$ plateau (at a level of about 10$^{-4}$) followed by a power law decay ($\alpha$ $\approx$ $-$1.1) after ages of $\approx$ 50 -- 100 Myr. Consequently, the EUV flux incident at 1 AU around solar analogs varies over the lifetime of the Sun, ranging from 100 $\times$ the present day UV irradiance at 10 Myr to 0.3 $\times$ the present-day level at 10 Gyr. We find that the EUV luminosity is approximately the same as the soft X-ray luminosity up to approximately 1 Gyr, after which the EUV luminosity of the stars dominate. In comparison to Sun-like stars, the EUV saturation level of early/mid M dwarfs is several times higher and lasts $\sim$10 -- 20 times longer.