The extreme ultraviolet and X-ray Sun in Time: High-energy evolutionary tracks of a solar-like star
- Author(s)
- Lin Tu, Colin Johnstone, Manuel Güdel, Helmut Lammer
- Abstract
Aims: We aim to describe the pre-main-sequence and main-sequence evolution of X-ray and extreme-ultaviolet radiation of a solar-mass star based on its rotational evolution starting with a realistic range of initial rotation rates.
Methods: We derive evolutionary tracks of X-ray radiation based on a rotational evolution model for solar-mass stars and the rotation-activity relation. We compare these tracks to X-ray luminosity distributions of stars in clusters with different ages.
Results: We find agreement between the evolutionary tracks derived from rotation and the X-ray luminosity distributions from observations. Depending on the initial rotation rate, a star might remain at the X-ray saturation level for very different time periods, from ≈10 Myr to ≈300 Myr for slow and fast rotators, respectively.
Conclusions: Rotational evolution with a spread of initial conditions leads to a particularly wide distribution of possible X-ray luminosities in the age range of 20-500 Myr, before rotational convergence and therefore X-ray luminosity convergence sets in. This age range is crucial for the evolution of young planetary atmospheres and may thus lead to very different planetary evolution histories.- Organisation(s)
- Department of Astrophysics
- External organisation(s)
- Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW)
- Journal
- Astronomy & Astrophysics
- Volume
- 577
- No. of pages
- 4
- ISSN
- 0004-6361
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201526146
- Publication date
- 05-2015
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103003 Astronomy, 103004 Astrophysics
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Astronomy and Astrophysics, Space and Planetary Science
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/3fbbfd7b-f498-4baf-9e3e-6c24705956cf