Understanding the solar activity cycle within the broader framework of stellar magnetic field dynamics is pivotal for comprehending the solar and stellar dynamos. A significant challenge in this pursuit lies in the presence of multiple branches in the relationship between stellar rotation and activity cycle period among main sequence stars. In this presentation, I will elucidate recent...
Like the solar cycle, stellar activity cycles are also irregular. Observations reveal that rapidly rotating (young) Sun-like stars exhibit a high level of activity with no Maunder-like grand minima and rarely display smooth regular activity cycles. On the other hand, slowly rotating old stars like the Sun have low activity levels and smooth cycles with occasional grand minima. We, for the...
Simultaneous monitoring of stellar brightness and chromospheric activity shows that the brightness variations of stars with near-solar level of chromospheric activity appear to be faculae dominated over their activity cycle, whereas they are spot dominated at higher chromospheric activity. Additionally, the unprecedented precision of broadband stellar photometry achieved with the...
Stellar variability presents a significant lower limit to detecting and characterizing exoplanets accurately. Contemporary methods of studying the impact of stellar magnetic fields (in the form of starspots and stellar faculae) involve using simple 1D model atmospheres with a specified effective temperature. We present realistic 3D MHD models of starspots with significant penumbral extent. We...
