Influence of Coronal Mass Ejections from the Red Dwarf Component on the Accretion Pattern in CVs and LMXBs

Extract

Low-mass main sequence stars show a magnetic activity similar to the Sun and as a consequence they lose mass in the form of a variable stellar wind. In the latest spectral types (red dwarfs) the activity and the mass loss rate appear to increase by a large factor of ∼ 10³ with respect to the solar case, reaching Ṁ ∼ 2 · 10⁻¹¹ M⊙/yr (Badalyan & Livshits 1992, Katsova 1993). The same happens for coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are the most relevant transient events of mass loss in these objects. In the Sun, these appear as bubbles of coronal material, with dimensions of some fraction of the solar surface, mass M ≃ 2 · 10¹⁴ - 2 · 10¹⁶ g and ejection velocity v ≃ 3 · 10⁷ - 2 · 10⁸ cm/s, with an instantaneous mass loss rate Ṁ ∽ 10⁻¹³ - 10⁻¹¹ M⊙/yr (Wagner 1984). In red dwarfs, as recently observed, the ejection velocities are higher, up to v ≃ 3 · 10⁸ cm/s and the mass loss rate can reach the value Ṁ ≃ 10⁻⁸ M⊙/yr (Mullan et al. 1989, Houdebine et al. 1990). In both cases, the observations suggest that a bubble expands, once ejected, with a velocity of several hundreds of km/s.