2004/11/22 by D. Garcia-Alvarez, David García-Álvarez, J. J. Drake +5 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/427721
published as Astrophys.J. 621 (2005) 1009-1022 · 23 pages, 10 figures. Accepted by ApJ
arxiv created 2004/11/22 · openalex publication_date 2005/03/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The zero-age main-sequence star AB Dor and the K dwarf component of the V471 Tau close binary have essentially identical rotation rates and spectral types. An analysis of their high-resolution Chandra X-ray spectra reveals remarkably similar coronal characteristics in terms of both temperature structure and element abundances. Both stars show depletions of low first ionization potential (FIP) elements by factors of ~3, with higher FIP elements showing more mild depletions. No evidence for enhancements of very low FIP (<7 eV) elements, such as Na, Al, and Ca, as compared to other low-FIP elements, was found. The abundance anomaly pattern for AB Dor and V471 Tau is similar to, although less extreme than, the abundance anomalies exhibited by active RS CVn-type binaries. While we find statistically significant structure in the underlying differential emission measure distributions of these stars over narrow temperature intervals, this structure is strongly dependent on the lines used in the analysis and is probably spurious. On the basis of their X-ray similarities, we conclude that the exact evolutionary state of a star has little effect on coronal characteristics and that the parameters that dominate coronal structure and composition are simply the rotation rate and spectral type.