Poster Abstracts

Name/Affiliation:  José Dias do Nascimento Jr (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics - CfA)

Title:  How typical is the Sun's magnetic cycle lengths ?

Abstract:
Over the past three decades the question of how typical the Sun is within the class of solar-type stars has been the subject of active investigation. Previous studies has suggested that the Sun's magnetic cycle period Pcyc is unusual compared with similar stars, falling between sequences of active and inactive stars. The HARPS planet-search has been gathering high-precision Ca II H&K chromospheric activity measurements for about 7 years, and has measured a large number of new Pcyc. We collect the most robust cycles among these for stars which are solar analogs (main-sequence stars with 0.8 Msun < mass < 1.2 Msun) or solar twins twins (stars with Teff, [Fe/H] and mass indistinguishable from the Sun). Combining this new sample with older data, we revisit the relation between rotation periods Prot and Pcyc. Our preliminary analysis shows that the Sun does not has a special position between the active and inactive sequences, but instead follows a new solar-analog sequence proposed here.