Oscillations of red giant stars with magnetic damping in the core

Abstract

Strong magnetic fields in the core of red-giant branch stars are expected to suppress the amplitudes of the multipole modes. This occurs when the strength of the internal magnetic field approaches the critical field strength, at which the magnetic forces become comparable to the buoyancy. We performed Hamiltonian ray tracing simulations of magneto-gravity waves to investigate the suppression of the multipole modes in the presence of an internal dipole-like magnetic field. We took into account different stellar masses, metallicities, and ages, as well as various oscillation frequencies and spherical degrees. In particular, we estimated the trapped fraction, a measure of multipole mode suppression, which quantifies the fraction of mode energy in the core that is dissipated by the interaction with the magnetic field. Our results indicate that the trapped fraction can be described by a simple expression, which smoothly connects the regime without multipole mode suppression with the regime with complete suppression of the multipole modes. Crucially, the trapped fraction depends only on the ratio between the strength of the internal magnetic field and the critical field strength. Therefore, our expression for the trapped fraction provides a flexible tool that can be used, for example, to estimate the amount of multipole mode suppression as a star ascends the red-giant branch or to investigate the onset of the suppression in observed power spectral densities.