Why are some A stars magnetic, while most are not?

Publication date

2007-09-17

Authors

Jeffers, S.V.

Editors

Berdyugina, Svetlana V.
Nagendra, K. N.
Ramelli, Renzo

Advisors

Supervisors

DOI

Document Type

Part of book
Open Access logo

License

Abstract

A small fraction of intermediate-mass main sequence (A and B type) stars have strong, organised magnetic fields. The large majority of such stars, however, show no evidence for magnetic fields, even when observed with very high precision. In this paper we describe a simple model, motivated by qualitatively new observational results, that provides a natural physical explanation for the small fraction of observed magnetic stars.

Keywords

Citation

Jeffers, S V 2007, Why are some A stars magnetic, while most are not? in S V Berdyugina, K N Nagendra & R Ramelli (eds), Solar polarization 5 in honor of Jan Olof Stenflo : proceedings of a workshop held at Centro Stefano Franscini-Monte Verità, Ascona, Switzerland, 17-21 September 2007. Astronomical Society of the Pacific, San Francisco, pp. 499-504.