Magnetic Spin-Up of Line-Driven Winds

Abstract

We summarize recent 2D MHD simulations of line-driven stellar winds from rotating hot-stars with a dipole magnetic field aligned to the star's rotation axis. For moderate to strong fields, much wind outflow is initially along closed magnetic loops that nearly corotate as a solid body with the underlying star, thus providing a torque that results in an effective angular momentum spin-up of the outflowing material. But instead of forming the ``magnetically torqued disk'' (MTD) postulated in previous phenemenological analyses, the dynamical simulations here show that material trapped near the tops of such closed loops tends either to fall back or break out, depending on whether it is below or above the Keplerian corotation radius. Overall the results raise serious questions about whether magnetic torquing of a wind outflow could naturally result in a Keplerian circumstellar disk. However, for very strong fields, it does still seem possible to form a %``magnetically confined, centrifugally supported, rigid-body disk'', centrifugally supported, ``magnetically rigid disk'' (MRD), in which the field not only forces material to maintain a rigid-body rotation, but for some extended period also holds it down against the outward centrifugal force at the loop tops. We argue that such rigid-body disks seem ill-suited to explain the disk emission from Be stars, but could provide a quite attractive paradigm for circumstellar emission from the magnetically strong Bp and Ap stars.