The age evolution of Ca II emission in late type stars

2008

It has been widely demonstrated that chromospheric emission is dependent on rotation rate (Hartmann and Noyes, 1987, Catalano, 1990, for recent reviews). Since the rotation decays with time, the chromospheric activity of single main sequence stars is also dependent on age. Catalano and Marilli (1983) suggested that the chromospheric emission of solar mass stars decays exponentially with the square root of the time, as recently confirmed by Barry (1988). Magnetic activity depends also on the convection parameters, i.e. on the mass. Since the evolution of surface rotation is faster for lower mass stars (Catalano et al., 1988), the internal rotation distribution, and therefore the dynamo actio…