collaborators

7 papers

astro-ph.SR2026

Searching for low-mass stars with magnetically-induced hyper-inflated radii

D. J. Mullan, J. MacDonald

Precise empirical estimates of stellar radii have revealed that the radii of certain low-mass stars are inflated relative to stellar structure predictions: the largest inflations o…

astro-ph.SR2026

New Insights from Revisiting the Rotation Period of the Strongly Magnetic O Star, NGC 1624-2

S. Seadrow, V. Petit, G. A. Wade +5

NGC 1624-2 hosts the strongest surface magnetic field found on an O star thus far. When applied across several epochs of observations, the star's currently accepted rotation period…

astro-ph.SR2025

Empirical measures of the largest amounts of magnetically-induced radius inflation in low-mass stars

D. J. Mullan, J. MacDonald

Access to precise empirical estimates of stellar radii in recent decades has revealed that the radii of certain low-mass stars are inflated relative to stellar structure prediction…

astro-ph.SR2025

The Role of the Convective Kissing Instability in Cataclysmic Variable Evolution

Conor M. Larsen, James MacDonald

The convective kissing instability (CKI) is postulated to occur in low mass stars around the fully convective transition. Non-equilibrium He burning leads to the merging of c…

astro-ph.SR2025

A plasmoid-model for mass loss from stars on the upper red giant branch: The mass loss rate is controlled by the number of density scale heights in the convection zone

J. MacDonald, D. J. Mullan

Recent asteroseismic determinations of ΔM, the integrated mass loss on the red giant branch (RGB), for fields stars show a trend of ΔM decreasing as metallicity increases. This t…

astro-ph.SR2025

Early Post Asymptotic Giant Branch Instability: Does it Affect White Dwarf Hydrogen Envelope Mass?

James MacDonald

Although most white dwarf stars have hydrogen-dominated atmospheres, a significant fraction have atmospheres in which hydrogen is spectroscopically absent, with the fraction of hyd…