Kepler K2 long cadence data are used to study white light flares in a sample of 45 L dwarfs. We identified 11 flares on 9 L dwarfs with equivalent durations of (1.3 - 198) hr and total (UV/optical/IR) energies of $\geq$0.9 $\times$ 10$^{32}$ erg. Two superflares with energies of $>$10$^{33}$ erg were detected on an L5 dwarf: this is the coolest object so far on which flares have been identified. The larger superflare on this L5 dwarf has an energy of 4.6$\times$ 10$^{34}$ ergs and an amplitude of $>$300 times the photospheric level: so far, this is the largest amplitude flare detected by the $Kepler/K2$ mission. The next coolest star on which we identified a flare was an L2 dwarf: 2MASS J08585891+1804463. Combining the energies of all the flares which we have identified on 9 L dwarfs with the total observation time which was dedicated by $Kepler$ to all 45 L dwarfs, we construct a composite flare frequency distribution (FFD). The FFD slope is quite shallow (-0.51$\pm$0.17), consistent with earlier results reported by Paudel et al. (2018) for one particular L0 dwarf, for which the FFD slope was found to be -0.34. Using the composite FFD, we predict that, in early and mid-L dwarfs, a superflare of energy 10$^{33}$ erg occurs every 2.4 years and a superflare of energy 10$^{34}$ erg occurs every 7.9 years. Analysis of our L dwarf flares suggests that magnetic fields of $\geq$0.13-1.3 kG are present on the stellar surface: such fields could suppress Type II radio bursts.
V2487 Oph is a recurrent nova with detected eruptions in 1900 and 1998. Startlingly, V2487 Oph shows flares, called `Superflares', with up to 1.10 mag amplitude, fast rises of under one-minute, always with an initial impulsive spike followed by a roughly-exponential tail, typically one-hour durations, and with random event times averaging once-per-day. The typical flare energy $E$ is over 10$^{38}$ ergs, while the yearly energy budget is 10$^{41}$ ergs. V2487 Oph Superflares obey three relations; the number distribution of flare energies scales as $E^{-2.34\pm0.35}$, the waiting time from one …
Superflares on Solar-Type Stars Observed with Kepler II. Photometric Variability of Superflare-Generating Stars : A Signature of Stellar Rotation and Starspots
Can flare loops contribute to the white-light emission of stellar superflares ?
自从开普勒卫星发现恒星超耀斑以来,人们一直将这些极高能事件与太阳耀斑类比来研究。它们的白光(WL)连续发射被解释为是由加热带产生的。在本文中,我们计算WL发射覆盖耀斑环取决于其密度和温度,并表明,在超耀斑期间预期的条件下,连续增亮,由于延长环路拱廊可以显着有助于开普勒探测到的恒星通量。这要求环中的电子密度为$10^{12} - 10^{13}$ cm $^{-3}$或更高。我们表明,这样的密度,超过那些通常存在于太阳耀斑环,可以达到M-矮星和太阳型超耀斑恒星与大的恒星黑子和更强的磁场。非常重要的是,环路的WL辐射对它们的温度不是非常敏感,因此冷环路和热环路都可能有贡献。我们发现,从光学薄的环出射的WL强度低于从耀斑带的黑体辐射,但环的贡献,总恒星通量可以是相当重要的,由于其显着的发射面积。这种解释超级耀斑发射的新方案表明,观测到的WL通量是由于带状和环状辐射的混合物,甚至可以在超级耀斑的渐进阶段以环状为主。
The most powerful superflares reaching 10$^{39}$erg bolometric energy are from giant stars. The mechanism behind flaring is supposed to be the magnetic reconnection, which is closely related to magnetic activity including starspots. However, it is poorly understood, how the underlying magnetic dynamo works and how the flare activity is related to the stellar properties which eventually control the dynamo action. We analyse the flaring activity of KIC 2852961, a late-type giant star, in order to understand how the flare statistics are related to that of other stars with flares and superflares a…
Solar and stellar flares are powerful events which produce intense radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum. Multiwavelength observations are highly important for understanding the nature of flares, because different flare-related processes reveal themselves in different spectral ranges. To study the correlation between thermal and nonthermal processes in stellar flares, we have searched the databases of Kepler (optical observations) and XMM-Newton (soft X-rays) for the flares observed simultaneously with both instruments; nine distinctive flares (with energies exceeding $10^{33}$ erg) on…
M stars are powerful emitters of far-ultraviolet light. Over long timescales, a significant, possibly dominant, fraction of this emission is produced by stellar flares. Characterizing this emission is critical to understanding the atmospheres of the stars producing it and the atmospheric evolution of the orbiting planets subjected to it. Ultraviolet emission is known to be elevated for several hundred million years after M stars form. Whether the same is true of ultraviolet flare activity is a key concern for the evolution of exoplanet atmospheres. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations by …
Stellar magnetic activity, just like that of the Sun, manifests itself in the form of flares and spots on the surface of the star. In the solar case, the largest flares originate from large active regions. In this work, we present a study of the activity of the star Kepler-411, including spot modeling from planetary transits. Our goal was to search for a connection between the area of starspots with the energy of superflares produced by this star. Kepler-411 is a K2V-type star with an average rotation period of 10.52 days, radius of 0.79 $R_{\odot}$ and a mass of 0.83 $M_{\odot} $, which was o…
Superflares on giant stars have up to 100,000 times more energy than the high energy solar flares. However, it is disputed, whether scaling up a solar-type dynamo could explain such a magnitude difference. We investigate the flaring activity of KIC 2852961, a late-type spotted giant. We seek for flares in the Kepler Q0-Q17 datasets by an automated technique together with visual inspection. Flare occurence rate and flare energies are analyzed and compared to flare statistics of different targets with similar flare activity at different energy levels. We find that the flare energy distribution o…
Over the past years, thousands of stellar flares have been detected by harvesting data from large photometric surveys. These detections, however, do not account for potential sources of contamination such as background stars appearing in the same aperture as the primary target. We present a new method for identifying the true flare sources in large photometric surveys using data from the Kepler mission. Potential flares are identified in two steps: first, we search the light curves for at least two subsequent data points exceeding a 5σ threshold above the running mean. For these two cadences, …
Active M-type stars are known to often produce superflares on the surface. Radiation from stellar (super-)flares is important for the exoplanet habitability, but the mechanisms are not well understood. In this paper, we report simultaneous optical spectroscopic and photometric observations of a stellar superflare on an active M dwarf YZ CMi with the 3.8-m Seimei telescope and the $Transiting\, Exoplanet\, Survey\, Satellite$. The flare bolometric energy was $1.3^{+1.6}_{-0.6} \times 10^{34} \,\rm{erg}$ and H$α$ energy was $3.0^{+0.1}_{-0.1} \times 10^{32} \,\rm{erg}$. The H$α$ emission line pr…
Superflares may provide the dominant source of biologically relevant UV radiation to rocky habitable zone M-dwarf planets (M-Earths), altering planetary atmospheres and conditions for surface life. The combined line and continuum flare emission has usually been approximated by a 9000 K blackbody. If superflares are hotter, then the UV emission may be 10X higher than predicted from the optical. However, it is unknown for how long M-dwarf superflares reach temperatures above 9000 K. Only a handful of M-dwarf superflares have been recorded with multi-wavelength high-cadence observations. We doubl…
We present here optical I-band photometric variability study down to $\simeq$ 19 mag of a young ($\sim$2-3 Myr) star-forming region IC 348 in the Perseus molecular cloud. We aim to explore the fast rotation (in the time-scales of hours) in Very Low Mass stars (VLMs) including Brown Dwarfs (BDs). From a sample of 177 light-curves using our new I-band observations, we detect new photometric variability in 22 young M-dwarfs including 6 BDs, which are bonafide members in IC 348 and well-characterized in the spectral type of M-dwarfs. Out of 22 variables, 11 M dwarfs including one BD show hour-scal…
Young solar-type stars are known to show frequent "superflares", which may severely influence the habitable worlds on young planets via intense radiations and coronal mass ejections. Here we report an optical spectroscopic and photometric observation of a long-duration superflare on the young solar-type star EK Draconis (50-120 Myr age) with the Seimei telescope and $Transiting$ $Exoplanet$ $Survey$ $Satellite$ ($TESS$). The flare energy 2.6$\times$10$^{34}$ erg and white-light flare duration 2.2 hr are much larger than those of the largest solar flares, and this is the largest superflare on a…
University of Graz(格拉茨大学);Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences(捷克科学院天文研究所);RG Science(RG科学);Astronomical Institute of Charles University(查理大学天文研究所);Center of Scientific Excellence - Solar and Stellar Activity, University of Wrocław(弗罗茨瓦夫大学卓越科学中心-太阳与恒星活动);Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg(图林根州陶滕堡国立天文台)
We report the latest statistical analyses of superflares on solar-type (G-type main-sequence; effective temperature is 5100 - 6000 K) stars using all of the $Kepler$ primary mission data, and $Gaia$-DR2 (Data Release 2) catalog. We updated the flare detection method from our previous studies by using high-pass filter to remove rotational variations caused by starspots. We also examined the sample biases on the frequency of superflares, taking into account gyrochronology and flare detection completeness. The sample size of solar-type stars and Sun-like stars (effective temperature is 5600 - 600…
In this paper, we report the detection and follow-ups of a super stellar flare GWAC\,181229A with an amplitude of $ΔR\sim$9.5 mag on a M9 type star by $\text{SVOM/GWAC}$ and the dedicated follow-up telescopes. The estimated bolometric energy $E_{bol}$ is $(5.56-9.25)\times10^{34}$ ergs, which places the event to be one of the most powerful flares on ultracool stars. The magnetic strength is inferred to be (3.6-4.7) kG. Thanks to the sampling with a cadence of 15 seconds, a new component near the peak time with a very steep decay is detected in the $R$-band light curve, followed by the two-comp…
We present the first multi-wavelength simultaneous detection of QPP in a superflare (more than a thousand times stronger than known solar flares) on a cool star, in soft X-rays (SXR, with XMM-Newton) and white light (WL, with Kepler). It allowed for the first-ever analysis of oscillatory processes in a stellar flare simultaneously in thermal and non-thermal emissions, conventionally considered to come from the corona and chromosphere of the star, respectively. The observed QPP have periods $1.5 \pm 0.15$ hours (SXR) and $3 \pm 0.6$ hours (WL), and correlate well with each other. The unique rel…
The nearby ultracool dwarf TRAPPIST-1 possesses several Earth-sized terrestrial planets, three of which have equilibrium temperatures that may support liquid surface water, making it a compelling target for exoplanet characterization. TRAPPIST-1 is an active star with frequent flaring, with implications for the habitability of its planets. Superflares (stellar flares whose energy exceeds 10^33 erg) can completely destroy the atmospheres of a cool star's planets, allowing ultraviolet radiation and high-energy particles to bombard their surfaces. However, ultracool dwarfs emit little ultraviolet…
In this work, 1272 superflares on 311 stars are collected from 22,539 solar-type stars from the second-year observation of Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which almost covered the northern hemisphere of the sky. Three superflare stars contain hot Jupiter candidates or ultrashort-period planet candidates. We obtain $γ= -1.76\pm 0.11$ of the correlation between flare frequency and flare energy ($dN/dE\propto E^{-γ}$) for all superflares and get $β=0.42\pm0.01$ of the correlation between superflare duration and energy ($T_{\text {duration }} \propto E^β$), which supports that a simi…
A superflare of BP Tau simultaneously caught by EP X-ray and TESS optical observations
Polar Research Institute of China(中国极地研究中心);Key Laboratory for Polar Science, MNR(自然资源部极地科学重点实验室);National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院国家天文台);Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University(北京大学科维理天文与天体物理研究所);Department of Astronomy, Peking University(北京大学天文学系);Hamburger Sternwarte(汉堡天文台);Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel(基尔大学理论与天体物理研究所);INAF—Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo(意大利国家天体物理学院巴勒莫天文台);Department of Physics, Imperial College London(伦敦帝国理工学院物理系)
We present a comprehensive study of three large long-duration flares detected on an active M-dwarf binary EQ Peg using the Soft X-Ray Telescope of the AstroSat observatory. The peak X-ray luminosities of the flares in the 0.3 - 7 keV band are found to be within ~5 - 10 x 10^{30} erg s^{-1}. The e-folding rise- and decay-times of the flares are derived to be in the range of 3.4 - 11 and 1.6 - 24 ks, respectively. Spectral analysis indicates the presence of three temperature corona with the first two plasma temperatures remain constant during all the flares and the post-flare observation at ~3 a…
We investigate the flare-frequency distributions of 5 M-dwarfs that experienced superflares with energies in excess of $10^{33}$ erg detected by ASAS-SN. We use K2 and TESS short-cadence observations along with archival ASAS-SN data to categorise the flaring behaviour of these stars across a range of flare energies. We were able to extract a rotation period for 4 of the stars. They were all fast rotators ($P_{\mathrm{rot}} \leq 6 \textrm{d}$), implying relative youth. We find that the flare-frequency distributions for each of the stars are well fit by a power-law, with slopes between $α= 1.22$…