High-Energy Stellar, Protostellar, and Protoplanetary Physics
The processes at work in the X-ray-emitting outer atmospheres of stars affect star and planet formation, the evolution of planetary atmospheres, magnetic dynamo processes at work in stellar interiors, the angular momentum evolution of stars, and the origin and acceleration of stellar winds and mass loss. High-energy phenomena in non-degenerate stars and protostars offer examples of processes that occur on much larger scales in the more distant cosmic X-ray sourcesÑincluding magnetic reconnection and flares illuminating accretion disks of black holes and the radiatively-driven winds and outflows of these accretion disks. Our current ideas and understanding of these aspects of X-ray astronomy stand on the shoulders of our knowledge of stars, and are advanced by understanding the basic plasma processes that we can study in their unusually well-understood environments.
