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C.J. Schrijver (Lockheed-Martin Advanced Technology Center)
Stars other than the Sun can, at present, be studied only as point sources. The Sun, in contrast, can be studied in great detail, but it shows us the magnetic workings of only a single star. This talk presents numerical simulations of model stars of widely different levels of magnetic activity, based on the solar recipes for emergence, dispersal, and disappearance of magnetic field. These simulations are used to simulated stellar observations. The Sun is found to be typical of its class: the solar properties are compatible with the disk-integrated properties of other stars with convective envelopes that exhibit magnetic activity. This conclusion requires three new processes to be included in a long-familiar description of the surface field: the emergence and evolution of small and ephemeral regions, the collision and fragmentation of concentrations of flux, and the magnetoconvective coupling that slows the motion of large concentrations. The model allows us to draw conclusions on ephemeral-region populations in other stars, on rotation-activity relationships, and on radiative losses from the outer atmospheres (from chromosphere to corona) of all cool stars: the solar-stellar connection is a strong component of our quest to understand what makes the Sun tick. With this model, the solar/stellar outer atmosphere can be modeled in a laboratory setting, in which the experimenter has control over all parameters.