Corotating Interaction Regions (CIRs): evolution over a solar lifetime

Clicks: 2
ID: 319013
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #367 of 908 articles by views in monthly notices of the royal astronomical society

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 908 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Abstract Corotating Interaction Regions (CIRs) are persistent structures in stellar winds that arise from the interaction between fast and slow wind streams. They are known to generate shocks and high-energy particles, potentially influencing the erosion of planetary atmospheres and space weather conditions. Although extensively studied for the present-day Sun, their evolution over a star’s lifetime and implications for planetary environments remain less explored. We model the evolution of CIRs around a solar-mass star using a rotational evolution framework and assess how their location, shape, and particle distributions vary with stellar age. We find that CIRs form closer to the star during early spin-up phases and migrate outward during spin down, with the minimum CIR radius inversely related to rotation rate. We show that the distribution of high-energy particles produced in CIR shocks varies significantly with age. During the Hadean period, when Earth’s atmosphere evolved significantly, CIRs may have generated a number of energetic particles that is 103 to 107 times greater than for the present-day Sun. The frequency and strength of CIR-planet interactions also peak during early rapid rotation phases. Furthermore, we demonstrate from this preliminary study that, for stars with mass less than 1.4 M⊙, whilst CIRs can form within the habitable zone, their shocks always form beyond it. This suggests that energetic particle impacts may rain inward from more distant regions, as with the present-day Sun. These findings have implications for habitability and the evolution of atmospheres since these particles can alter the chemistry and escape rate of atmospheres.
Reference Key
openalex_W7166352395 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Rose F P Waugh, M. Jardine
Journal monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/mnras/stag1238
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1238
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.