Modeling the effects of starspots on stellar magnetic cycles

¹ School of Space and Environment, Beihang University, Beijing, PR China
e-mail: jiejiang@buaa.edu.cn
² Key Laboratory of Space Environment Monitoring and Information Processing of MIIT, Beijing, PR China
³ Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Irkutsk, Russia
⁴ Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory, St. Petersburg, Russia

Received: 9 October 2023
Accepted: 28 February 2024

Abstract

Context. Observations show that faster rotating stars tend to have stronger magnetic activity and shorter magnetic cycles. The cyclical magnetic activity of the Sun and stars is believed to be driven by the dynamo process. The success of the Babcock-Leighton (BL) dynamo in explaining the solar cycle suggests that starspots could play an important role in stellar magnetic cycles.

Aims. We aim to extend the BL mechanism to solar-mass stars with various rotation rates and explore the effects of emergence properties of starspots in latitudes and tilt angles on stellar magnetic cycles.

Methods. We adopt a kinematic BL-type dynamo model operating in the bulk of the convection zone. The profiles of the large-scale flow fields are from the mean-field hydrodynamical model for various rotators. The BL source term in the model is constructed based on the rotation dependence of starspot emergence; that is, faster rotators have starspots at higher latitudes with larger tilt angles.

Results. Faster rotators have poloidal flux appearing closer to about ±55° latitudes, where the toroidal field generation efficiency is the strongest because of the peak in the strength of the latitudinal differential rotation there. It takes a shorter time for faster rotators to transport the surface poloidal field from their emergence latitude to the ±55° latitudes of efficient Ω-effect, which shortens their magnetic cycles. The faster rotators operate in a more supercritical regime because of a stronger BL α-effect relating to the tilt angles, which leads to stronger saturated magnetic fields and makes the coupling of the poloidal field between two hemispheres more difficult. The magnetic field parity therefore shifts from the hemispherically asymmetric mixed mode to quadrupole, and further to dipole when a star spins down.

Conclusions. The emergence of starspots plays an essential role in the large-scale stellar dynamo.