5.6 Putting it all together: The XUV Sun in time
The above subsections provide the input for a comprehensive model of the spectral evolution of the “Sun
in Time” in the wavelength band that is relevant for ionization of and chemical reactions in planetary
atmospheres and circumstellar disks, namely the 1–1700 Å (
0.007–10 keV) FUV/EUV/X-ray (“XUV”)
range. The results are summarized in Tables 4 and 5 compiled using data from Ribas et al. (2005
) (for the
UV-EUV range) and Telleschi et al. (2005
) (for the X-ray range). The table also contains data referring to
the classical T Tauri star TW Hya, to be discussed in Section 6, and solar data (see Ribas et al. 2005
for
references).
The line fluxes given in Table 4 are normalized to a distance of 1 AU and have also been normalized to the
radius our Sun had at the age of the respective star. Note that the Ly
line fluxes were corrected for
interstellar H i and D i absorption, i.e., they represent the pure stellar contribution.
Ribas et al. (2005
) constructed band-integrated irradiances for the spectral ranges 1–20 Å (X-rays),
20–100 Å (soft X-rays and EUV), 100–360 Å (EUV), and 920–1180 Å (FUV). For the wavelength
range of 1180–1700 Å, only line fluxes are provided because of increasing contributions from the
photospheric continuum.
All integrated irradiances correlate tightly with the stellar rotation period or age, suggesting a rapid
decay of activity at all atmospheric levels in concert. The relations are excellently represented by power
laws, as illustrated in Figure 19a. The power-law fits to the fluxes of the form
(
and
being constants) are given in Table 5. Note that the inaccessible spectral range of
360–920 Å (strongly absorbed by interstellar gas) has been interpolated between adjacent spectral ranges,
assuming a decay law with
= –1.