Chromospheric Models of Solar Type Stars: The Vaughan-Preston Gap

Abstract

We have built different models for stars of the same spectral type than the Sun but with different levels of chromospheric activity, to study the response of the S index of activity built from the emission of the Ca II H and K lines to changes in the chromospheric structure. We found that the fact that there are many stars with either strong or weak emission, but few with intermediate values of S, the so-called Vaughan Preston gap, can be due to a discontinuity in the response of the Ca II lines to chromospheric heating. In fact, we are able to reproduce the observed distribution of the number of stars as a function of S.