2006/02/02 by J.‐F. Donati, JF Donati, T Forveille +11 · 8 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/science.1121102
published as Science 311 (2006) 633-635 · 17 pages, 4 figures, supplementary online material (including 2 figures)
openalex publication_date 2006/02/02 · arxiv created 2006/02/03 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Understanding how cool stars produce magnetic fields within their interiors is crucial for predicting the impact of such fields, such as the activity cycle of the Sun. In this respect, studying fully convective stars enables us to investigate the role of convective zones in magnetic field generation. We produced a magnetic map of a rapidly rotating, very-low-mass, fully convective dwarf through tomographic imaging from time series of spectropolarimetric data. Our results, which demonstrate that fully convective stars are able to trigger axisymmetric large-scale poloidal fields without differential rotation, challenge existing theoretical models of field generation in cool stars.