One month convection timescale on the surface of a giant evolved star

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Auteurs principaux: Vlemmings, W., Khouri, T., Arbab, B. Bojnordi, De Beck, E., Maercker, M.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Vlemmings, W.
Khouri, T.
Arbab, B. Bojnordi
De Beck, E.
Maercker, M.
author_facet Vlemmings, W.
Khouri, T.
Arbab, B. Bojnordi
De Beck, E.
Maercker, M.
contents The transport of energy through convection is important during many stages of stellar evolution, and is best studied in our Sun or giant evolved stars. Features that are attributed to convection are found on the surface of massive red supergiant stars. Also for lower mass evolved stars, indications of convection are found, but convective timescales and sizes remain poorly constrained. Models indicate that convective motions are crucial for the production of strong winds that return the products of stellar nucleosynthesis into the interstellar medium. Here we report a series of reconstructed interferometric images of the surface of the evolved giant star R Doradus. The images reveal a stellar disc with prominent small scale features that provide the structure and motions of convection on the stellar surface. We find that the dominant structure size of the features on the stellar disc is $0.72\pm0.05$ astronomical units (au). We measure the velocity of the surface motions to vary between $-18$ and $+20$ km s$^{-1}$, which means the convective timescale is approximately one month. This indicates a possible difference between the convection properties of low-mass and high-mass evolved stars.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_06785
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle One month convection timescale on the surface of a giant evolved star
Vlemmings, W.
Khouri, T.
Arbab, B. Bojnordi
De Beck, E.
Maercker, M.
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
The transport of energy through convection is important during many stages of stellar evolution, and is best studied in our Sun or giant evolved stars. Features that are attributed to convection are found on the surface of massive red supergiant stars. Also for lower mass evolved stars, indications of convection are found, but convective timescales and sizes remain poorly constrained. Models indicate that convective motions are crucial for the production of strong winds that return the products of stellar nucleosynthesis into the interstellar medium. Here we report a series of reconstructed interferometric images of the surface of the evolved giant star R Doradus. The images reveal a stellar disc with prominent small scale features that provide the structure and motions of convection on the stellar surface. We find that the dominant structure size of the features on the stellar disc is $0.72\pm0.05$ astronomical units (au). We measure the velocity of the surface motions to vary between $-18$ and $+20$ km s$^{-1}$, which means the convective timescale is approximately one month. This indicates a possible difference between the convection properties of low-mass and high-mass evolved stars.
title One month convection timescale on the surface of a giant evolved star
topic Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.06785