Radio emission from RS CVn binaries. II. Polarization and spectral properties
Multiepoch radio observations of circular polarization and spectral characteristics of several close, late-type stellar binaries are reported. The median luminosity of four well-studied systems ranged from 16.2 to 17.1 ergs/s/Hz. For individual systems, the fractional circular polarization decreases with increasing luminosity, particularly at frequencies above 5 GHz. Eclipsing binaries have significantly lower average circular polarization compared with noneclipsing systems. Helicity reversal is almost always observed between 1.4 and 4.9 GHz for systems with high orbital inclination. Comparison with ten years of previously published polarization observations for two RS CVn stellar systems show that the same helicity occurs at a given frequency for a given source, indicating a very stable, large-scale magnetic field geometry. These spectral and polarization characteristics strongly support a model of inhomogeneous gyrosynchrotron emission arising from electrons with power law energy spectra interacting with inhomogeneous magnetic fields. 35 references.
- Research Organization:
- Iowa Univ., Iowa City; Scranton Univ., PA; Bureau des Longitudes, Paris, France; California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
- OSTI ID:
- 6239476
- Journal Information:
- Astron. J.; (United States), Vol. 93
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
GENERAL PHYSICS
BINARY STARS
RADIOWAVE RADIATION
ELECTRONS
LUMINOSITY
MAGNETIC FIELD CONFIGURATIONS
MAGNETIC FIELDS
POLARIZATION
SYNCHROTRON RADIATION
BREMSSTRAHLUNG
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
FERMIONS
LEPTONS
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
RADIATIONS
STARS
640102* - Astrophysics & Cosmology- Stars & Quasi-Stellar
Radio & X-Ray Sources