scholarly journals A new weak-field magnetic DA white dwarf in the local 20 pc volume

2019 ◽  
Vol 628 ◽  
pp. A1 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. Landstreet ◽  
S. Bagnulo

We report the discovery of a new magnetic DA white dwarf (WD), WD 0011 − 721, which is located within the very important 20 pc volume-limited sample of the closest WDs to the Sun. This star has a mean field modulus ⟨|B|⟩ of 343 kG, and from the polarisation signal we deduce a line-of-sight field component of 75 kG. The magnetic field is sufficiently weak to have escaped detection in classification spectra. We then present a preliminary exploration of the data concerning the frequency of such fields among WDs with hydrogen-rich atmospheres (DA stars). We find that 20 ± 5% of the DA WDs in this volume have magnetic fields, mostly weaker than 1 MG. Unlike the slow field decay found among the magnetic Bp stars of the upper main sequence, the WDs in this sample show no evidence of magnetic field or flux changes over several Gyr.

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (S302) ◽  
pp. 220-221
Author(s):  
Adriana Válio ◽  
Eduardo Spagiari

AbstractSunspots are important signatures of the global solar magnetic field cycle. It is believed that other stars also present these same phenomena. However, today it is not possible to observe directly star spots due to their very small sizes. The method applied here studies star spots by detecting small variations in the stellar light curve during a planetary transit. When the planet passes in front of its host star, there is a chance of it occulting, at least partially, a spot. This allows the determination of the spots physical characteristics, such as size, temperature, and location on the stellar surface. In the case of the Sun, there exists a relation between the magnetic field and the spot temperature. We estimate the magnetic field component along the line-of-sight and the intensity of sunspots using data from the MDI instrument on board of the SOHO satellite. Assuming that the same relation applies to other stars, we estimate spots magnetic fields of CoRoT-2 and Kepler-17 stars.


2018 ◽  
Vol 621 ◽  
pp. A1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina Robustini ◽  
Sara Esteban Pozuelo ◽  
Jorrit Leenaarts ◽  
Jaime de la Cruz Rodríguez

Context.Unipolar magnetic regions are often associated with supergranular cells. The chromosphere above these regions is regulated by the magnetic field, but the field structure is poorly known. In unipolar regions, the fibrillar arrangement does not always coincide with magnetic field lines, and polarimetric observations are needed to establish the chromospheric magnetic topology.Aims.In an active region close to the limb, we observed a unipolar annular network of supergranular size. This supergranular structure harbours a radial distribution of the fibrils converging towards its centre. We aim to improve the description of this structure by determining the magnetic field configuration and the line-of-sight velocity distribution in both the photosphere and the chromosphere.Methods.We observed the supergranular structure at different heights by taking data in the Fe I6301–6302 Å, Hα, Ca II8542 Å, and the Ca IIH&K spectral lines with the CRisp Imaging SpectroPolarimeter (CRISP) and CHROMospheric Imaging Spectrometer (CHROMIS) at the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope. We performed Milne-Eddington inversions of the spectropolarimetric data of Fe I6301–6302 Å and applied the weak field approximation to Ca II8542 Å data to retrieve the magnetic field in the photosphere and chromosphere. We used photospheric magnetograms of CRISP, Hinode Solar Optical Telescope spectropolarimeter, and Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager to calculate the magnetic flux. We investigated the velocity distribution using the line-of-sight velocities computed from the Milne-Eddington inversion and from the Doppler shift of theK3feature in the Ca IIK spectral line. To describe the typical spectral profiles characterising the chromosphere above the inner region of the supergranular structure, we performed aK-mean clustering of the spectra in Ca IIK.Results.The photospheric magnetic flux shows that the supergranular boundary has an excess of positive polarity and the whole structure is not balanced. The magnetic field vector at chromospheric heights, retrieved by the weak field approximation, indicates that the field lines within the supergranular cell tend to point inwards, and might form a canopy above the unipolar region. In the centre of the supergranular cell hosting the unipolar region, we observe a persistent chromospheric brightening coinciding with a strong gradient in the line-of-sight velocity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 490 (2) ◽  
pp. 2013-2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn Cruces ◽  
Andreas Reisenegger ◽  
Thomas M Tauris

ABSTRACT Millisecond pulsars (MSPs) are old, fast spinning neutron stars (NSs) thought to have evolved from classical pulsars in binary systems, where the rapid rotation is caused by the accretion of matter and angular momentum from their companion. During this transition between classical and MSPs, there is a magnetic field reduction of ∼4 orders of magnitude, which is not well understood. According to the standard scenario, the magnetic field is reduced as a consequence of accretion, either through ohmic dissipation or through screening by the accreted matter. We explored an alternative hypothesis in which the magnetic field is reduced through ambipolar diffusion before the accretion. This is particularly effective during the long epoch in which the pulsar has cooled, but has not yet started accreting. This makes the final magnetic field dependent on the evolution time of the companion star and thus its initial mass. We use observed binary systems to constrain the time available for the magnetic field decay based on the current pulsar companion: a helium white dwarf, a carbon–oxygen white dwarf, or another NS. Based on a simplified model without baryon pairing, we show that the proposed process agrees with the general distribution of observed magnetic field strengths in binaries, but is not able to explain some mildly recycled pulsars where no significant decay appears to have occurred. We discuss the possibility of other formation channels for these systems and the conditions under which the magnetic field evolution would be set by the NS crust rather than the core.


2004 ◽  
Vol 190 ◽  
pp. 58-70
Author(s):  
Andrew Cumming

AbstractI discuss the effect of accretion on the magnetic field of an accreting white dwarf. Whereas the magnetic fields of isolated white dwarfs are not expected to change significantly with time, I show that if an accreting white dwarf increases in mass at a rate > 1–5 × 10−10MΘ yr–1, accretion overcomes ohmic diffusion and has a significant effect on the field structure. I discuss the implications of this result for observed systems. In particular, accretion induced field evolution may provide the missing evolutionary link between the strong field, slowly accreting AM Her systems and the weak field, more rapidly accreting intermediate polars.


Author(s):  
N. B. Rubtsova ◽  
A. Y. Tokarskiy

The main problems of overhead and cable transmission lines with voltage >=110 kV electric and magnetic fields general public protection are presented. It is shown that it is necessary to develop regulatory requirements for these lines’ sanitary protection zones organization, taking into account the magnetic field component, because its possible health risk factor, up to carcinogenic.


1993 ◽  
Vol 138 ◽  
pp. 305-309
Author(s):  
Marco Landolfi ◽  
Egidio Landi Degl’Innocenti ◽  
Maurizio Landi Degl’Innocenti ◽  
Jean-Louis Leroy ◽  
Stefano Bagnulo

AbstractBroadband linear polarization in the spectra of Ap stars is believed to be due to differential saturation between σ and π Zeeman components in spectral lines. This mechanism has been known for a long time to be the main agent of a similar phenomenon observed in sunspots. Since this phenomenon has been carefully calibrated in the solar case, it can be confidently used to deduce the magnetic field of Ap stars.Given the magnetic configuration of a rotating star, it is possible to deduce the broadband polarization at any phase. Calculations performed for the oblique dipole model show that the resulting polarization diagrams are very sensitive to the values of i (the angle between the rotation axis and the line of sight) and β (the angle between the rotation and magnetic axes). The dependence on i and β is such that the four-fold ambiguity typical of the circular polarization observations ((i,β), (β,i), (π-i,π-β), (π-β,π-i)) can be removed.


1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 679-681
Author(s):  
M. Landolfi

The observational quantities commonly used to study the magnetic field of CP stars – the mean field modulus and the mean longitudinal field, as well as the ‘mean asymmetry of the longitudinal field’ and the ‘mean quadratic field’ recently introduced by Mathys (1995a,b) – are based either on the Stokes parameter / or on the Stokes parameter V. However, a complete description of polarized radiation requires the knowledge of the full Stokes vector: in other words, we should expect that useful information is also contained in linear polarization (the Stokes parameters Q and U); or rather we should expect the information contained in (Q, U) and in V to be complementary, since linear and circular polarization are basically related to the transverse and the longitudinal component of the magnetic field, respectively.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S291) ◽  
pp. 586-588
Author(s):  
Xia Zhou ◽  
Miao Kang ◽  
Na Wang

AbstractThe effect of magnetic field decay on the chemical heating and thermal evolution of neutron stars is discussed. Our main goal is to study how chemical heating mechanisms and thermal evolution are changed by field decay and how magnetic field decay is modified by the thermal evolution. We show that the effect of chemical heating is suppressed by the star spin-down through decaying magnetic field at a later stage; magnetic field decay is delayed significantly relative to stars cooling without heating mechanisms; compared to typical chemical heating, the decay of the magnetic field can even cause the temperature to turn down at a later stage.


Author(s):  
Atanu Koley ◽  
Nirupam Roy ◽  
Karl M Menten ◽  
Arshia M Jacob ◽  
Thushara G S Pillai ◽  
...  

Abstract Measuring interstellar magnetic fields is extremely important for understanding their role in different evolutionary stages of interstellar clouds and of star formation. However, detecting the weak field is observationally challenging. We present measurements of the Zeeman effect in the 1665 and 1667 MHz (18 cm) lines of the hydroxyl radical (OH) lines toward the dense photodissociation region (PDR) associated with the compact H ii region DR 21 (Main). From the OH 18 cm absorption, observed with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, we find that the line of sight magnetic field in this region is ∼0.13 mG. The same transitions in maser emission toward the neighbouring DR 21(OH) and W 75S-FR1 regions also exhibit the Zeeman splitting. Along with the OH data, we use [C ii] 158 μm line and hydrogen radio recombination line data to constrain the physical conditions and the kinematics of the region. We find the OH column density to be ∼3.6 × 1016(Tex/25 K) cm−2, and that the 1665 and 1667 MHz absorption lines are originating from the gas where OH and C+ are co-existing in the PDR. Under reasonable assumptions, we find the measured magnetic field strength for the PDR to be lower than the value expected from the commonly discussed density–magnetic field relation while the field strength values estimated from the maser emission are roughly consistent with the same. Finally, we compare the magnetic field energy density with the overall energetics of DR 21’s PDR and find that, in its current evolutionary stage, the magnetic field is not dynamically important.


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