The differential rotation of G dwarfs

¹ Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany
e-mail: mkueker@aip.de; gruediger@aip.de
² Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, PO Box 291, Irkutsk 664033, Russia
e-mail: kit@iszf.irk.ru
³ Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory, St. Petersburg 196140, Russia

Received: 25 October 2010
Accepted: 20 February 2011

Abstract

A series of stellar models of spectral type G is computed to study the rotation laws resulting from mean-field equations. The rotation laws of the slowly rotating Sun, the rapidly rotating MOST stars ϵ Eri and κ¹ Cet, and the rapid rotators R58 and LQ Lup can be easily reproduced. We also find that differences in the depth of the convection zone cause large differences in the surface rotation law and that the extreme surface shear of HD 171488 can only be explained with an artificially shallow convection layer. We verify the thermal wind equilibrium in rapidly rotating G dwarfs and find that the polar subrotation (dΩ/dz < 0) is due to the baroclinic effect and the equatorial superrotation (dΩ/dr > 0) is caused by the Reynolds stresses. In the bulk of the convection zones where the meridional flow is slow and smooth, the thermal wind equilibrium holds between the centrifugal and the pressure forces. It does not hold, however, in the bounding shear layers including the equatorial region where the Reynolds stresses dominate.