The significance of electrostatic properties in the interiors of low-mass stars

In the partially ionized material of stellar interiors, the strongest forces acting on electrons and ions are the Coulomb interactions between charges. The dynamics of the plasma as a whole depend on the magnitudes of the average electrostatic interactions and the average kinetic energies of the particles that constitute the stellar material. An important question is how these interactions of real gases are related to the observable stellar properties. Specifically, the relationships between rotation, magnetic activity, and the thermodynamic properties of stellar interiors are still not well understood. These connections are crucial for understanding and interpreting the abundant observational data provided by space-based missions such as Kepler/K2, TESS, and the future data from the PLATO mission. In this study, we investigate the electrostatic effects within the interiors of low-mass main-sequence stars. Specifically, we introduce a global quantity, a global plasma parameter, that allows us to compare the importance of electrostatic interactions across a range of low-mass theoretical models (0.7-1.4 M⊙) with varying ages and metallicities. We then correlate the electrostatic properties of the theoretical models with the observable rotational trends on the main sequence.