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I don't think there's an actual "technical" term for it other than just plain old "divider". I know in web pages they used to be called "horizontal bars" and their ONLY purpose was to make breaks in the page, they never needed to be called anything else.
Some books use one asterisk, some use many, some use symbols entirely different, I don't think there's any uniformity to it, it's just a visual convenience.
***** means what? 
Linear Mode
