Catching the wisps: Stellar mass-loss limits from low-frequency radio observations
Article
Article Title | Catching the wisps: Stellar mass-loss limits from low-frequency radio observations |
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ERA Journal ID | 1050 |
Article Category | Article |
Authors | Bloot, S., Vedantham, H. K., Kavanagh, R. D., Callingham, J. R. and Pope, B. J. S. |
Journal Title | Astronomy and Astrophysics: a European journal |
Journal Citation | 695 |
Article Number | A176 |
Number of Pages | 8 |
Year | 2025 |
Publisher | EDP Sciences |
Place of Publication | France |
ISSN | 0004-6361 |
1432-0746 | |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202452722 |
Web Address (URL) | https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/03/aa52722-24/aa52722-24.html |
Abstract | The winds of low-mass stars carry away angular momentum and impact the atmospheres of surrounding planets. Determining the properties of these winds is necessary to understand the mass-loss history of the star and the evolution of exoplanetary atmospheres. Due to their tenuous nature, the winds of low-mass main-sequence stars are difficult to detect. The few existing techniques for measuring these winds are indirect, with the most common inference method for winds of low-mass stars being astrospheric Lyman-α absorption combined with complex hydrodynamical modelling of the interaction between the stellar wind and the interstellar medium. Here, we employ a more direct method to place upper limits on the mass-loss rates of low-mass stars by combining observations of low-frequency coherent radio emission, the lack of free-free absorption, and a simple stellar wind model. We determine upper limits on the mass-loss rate for a sample of 19 M dwarf stars detected with the LOFAR telescope at 120−168 MHz, reaching a sensitivity within an order of magnitude of the solar mass-loss rate for cold stars with a surface magnetic field strength of ∼100 G. The sensitivity of our method does not depend on distance or spectral type, allowing us to find mass-loss rate constraints for stars up to spectral type M6 and out to a distance of 50 pc, later and farther than previous measurements. With upcoming low-frequency surveys with both LOFAR and the Square Kilometre Array, the number of stars with mass-loss rate upper limits determined with this method could reach ∼1000. |
Keywords | Radio continuum: stars; stars: coronae; stars: magnetic field; stars: mass-loss |
Contains Sensitive Content | Does not contain sensitive content |
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020 | 5101. Astronomical sciences |
Byline Affiliations | Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Netherlands |
University of Groningen, Netherlands | |
University of Amsterdam, Netherlands | |
Centre for Astrophysics | |
School of Mathematics, Physics and Computing | |
Macquarie University |
https://research.usq.edu.au/item/zx144/catching-the-wisps-stellar-mass-loss-limits-from-low-frequency-radio-observations
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