The Near-Ultraviolet Luminosity Function of Young, Early M-Type Dwarf Stars

Abstract

Planets orbiting within the close-in habitable zones of M dwarf stars will be exposed to elevated high-energy radiation driven by strong magneto-hydrodynamic dynamos during stellar youth. Near-ultraviolet (NUV) irradiation can erode and alter the chemistry of planetary atmospheres, and a quantitative description of the evolution of NUV emission from M dwarfs is needed when modeling these effects. We investigated the NUV luminosity evolution of early M-type dwarfs by cross-correlating the Lepine & Gaidos (2011) catalog of bright M dwarfs with the GALEX catalog of NUV (1771-2831A) sources. Of the 4805 sources with GALEX counterparts, 797 have NUV emission significantly (> 2.5 sigma) in excess of an empirical basal level. We inspected these candidate active stars using visible-wavelength spectra, high-resolution adaptive optics imaging, time-series photometry, and literature searches to identify cases where the elevated NUV emission is due to unresolved background sources or stellar companions; we estimated the overall occurrence of these "false positives" as ~16%. We constructed a NUV luminosity function that accounted for false positives, detection biases of the source catalogs, and GALEX upper limits. We found the NUV luminosity function to be inconsistent with predictions from a constant star-formation rate and simplified age-activity relation defined by a two-parameter power law.

References in corpus (51)

• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• The Galaxy Evolution Explorer: A Space Ultraviolet Survey Mission
• The WASP Project and the SuperWASP Cameras
• Solar Chemical Abundances Determined with a CO5BOLD 3D Model Atmosphere
• Evolution of the Solar Activity over Time and Effects on Planetary Atmospheres: I. High-energy Irradiances (1-1700 A)
• Constraining the Age-Activity Relation for Cool Stars: The SDSS DR5 Low-Mass Star Spectroscopic Sample
• Building Terrestrial Planets
• Characterization of M,L and T dwarfs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• A Catalog of Northern Stars With Annual Proper Motions Larger Than 0.15 Seconds of Arc (LSPM catalog - North)
• Empirical extinction coefficients for the GALEX, SDSS, 2MASS and WISE passbands
• The Palomar/MSU Nearby Star Spectroscopic Survey III: Chromospheric Activity, M-dwarf Ages and the Local Star Formation History
• A Re-appraisal of the Habitability of Planets Around M Dwarf Stars
• Bayesian analysis to identify new star candidates in nearby young stellar kinematic groups
• Trumpeting M Dwarfs with CONCH-SHELL: a Catalog of Nearby Cool Host-Stars for Habitable ExopLanets and Life
• Meeting the Cool Neighbors. IX. The Luminosity Function of M7-L8 Ultracool Dwarfs in the Field
• Infrared Spectra and Spectral Energy Distributions of Late-M- and L-Dwarfs
• A Spectroscopic Catalog of the Brightest (J<9) M Dwarfs in the Northern Sky
• An All-Sky Catalog of Bright M Dwarfs
• The Ultraviolet Radiation Environment Around M dwarf Exoplanet Host Stars
• The Effective Temperature Scale of M dwarfs
• The Gaia-ESO Survey: radial metallicity gradients and age-metallicity relation of stars in the Milky Way disk
• Observations of Cool-Star Magnetic Fields
• Identifying the Young Low-mass Stars within 25 pc. I. Spectroscopic Observations
• The UV and X-ray activity of the M dwarfs within 10pc of the Sun
• Radius Dependent Angular Momentum Evolution in Low-Mass Stars. I
• High Stellar FUV/NUV Ratio and Oxygen Contents in the Atmospheres of Potentially Habitable Planets
• On the Age and Binarity of Fomalhaut
• HAZMAT I: The Evolution of Far-UV and Near-UV Emission from Early M Stars
• They might be giants: luminosity class, planet frequency, and planet-metallicity relation of the coolest Kepler target stars
• Robotic Laser-Adaptive-Optics Imaging of 715 Kepler Exoplanet Candidates using Robo-AO
• Searching for Young M Dwarfs with GALEX
• Catalogs of Hot White Dwarfs in the Milky Way from GALEX's Ultraviolet Sky Surveys. Constraining Stellar Evolution
• UV habitable zones around M stars
• High-efficiency Autonomous Laser Adaptive Optics
• Stellar Activity in the Broad-Band Ultraviolet
• What controls the magnetic geometry of M dwarfs?
• The recent star formation history of the Hipparcos solar neighbourhood
• Short period eclipsing binary candidates identified using SuperWASP
• The GALEX Nearby Young-Star Survey
• A New Method to Identify Nearby, Young, Low-mass Stars
• White Dwarf Cosmochronology in the Solar Neighborhood
• The effect of M dwarf starspot activity on low-mass planet detection thresholds
• An Observational Study of Tidal Synchronization in Solar-Type Binary Stars in the Open Clusters M35 and M34
• The effect of Lyman $\alpha$ radiation on mini-Neptune atmospheres around M stars: application to GJ 436b
• Ultraviolet Radiation Constraints around the Circumstellar Habitable Zones
• Constraining the star formation rate in the Solar neighbourhood with star clusters
• New Worlds on the Horizon: Earth-Sized Planets Close to Other Stars
• M dwarf companions to white dwarfs I: relating magnetic activity, rotation and age
• Trawling for transits in a sea of noise: A Search for Exoplanets by Analysis of WASP Optical Lightcurves and Follow-up (SEAWOLF)
• GALEX ultraviolet observations of stellar variability in the Hyades and Pleiades clusters
• Properties of Near-Infrared Selected AGN Candidates with 2MASS/ROSAT Catalogues

Cited by in corpus (32)

• How to Constrain Your M Dwarf: measuring effective temperature, bolometric luminosity, mass, and radius
• How to Constrain Your M dwarf II: the mass-luminosity-metallicity relation from 0.075 to 0.70$M_{\odot }$
• The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs: Different roads to radii and masses of the target stars
• CARMENES input catalogue of M dwarfs V. Luminosities, colours, and spectral energy distributions
• Zodiacal Exoplanets In Time (ZEIT) I: A Neptune-sized planet orbiting an M4.5 dwarf in the Hyades Star Cluster
• CARMENES input catalogue of M dwarfs II. High-resolution imaging with FastCam
• HAZMAT III: The UV Evolution of Mid- to Late-M Stars with GALEX
• Calibration of the Halpha Age-Activity relation for M dwarfs
• A circular polarisation survey for radio stars with the Australian SKA Pathfinder
• Spectroscopic confirmation of M-dwarf candidate members of the Beta Pictoris and AB Doradus Moving Groups
• Rotation-activity relations and flares of M dwarfs with K2 long- and short-cadence data
• Zodiacal Exoplanets in Time (ZEIT) II. A "Super-Earth" Orbiting a Young K Dwarf in the Pleiades Neighborhood
• TOI-1235 b: a keystone super-Earth for testing radius valley emergence models around early M dwarfs
• The Elusive Majority of Young Moving Groups. I. Young Binaries and Lithium-Rich Stars in the Solar Neighborhood
• Secular Dimming of KIC 8462852 Following its Consumption of a Planet
• A Catalog of GALEX Ultraviolet Emission from Spectroscopically Confirmed M Dwarfs
• K2-146: Discovery of Planet c, Precise Masses from Transit Timing, and Observed Precession
• HAZMAT II: Ultraviolet Variability of Low-Mass Stars in the GALEX Archive
• Zodiacal Exoplanets in Time. XI. The Orbit and Radiation Environment of the Young M Dwarf-Hosted Planet K2-25b
• Titania may produce abiotic oxygen atmospheres on habitable exoplanets
• The UV Emission of Stars in LAMOST Survey I. Catalogs
• The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs: Spectroscopic orbits of nine M-dwarf multiple systems, including two triples, two brown dwarf candidates, and one close M-dwarf-white dwarf binary
• Stellar Characterization and Radius Inflation of Hyades M Dwarf Stars From the APOGEE Survey
• Planetesimals Around Stars with TESS (PAST): II. An M Dwarf "Dipper" Star with a Long-Lived Disk in the TESS Continuous Viewing Zone
• Nearby Young, Active, Late-type Dwarfs in Gaia's First Data Release
• Lyman-$\alpha$ Observations of High Radial Velocity Low-Mass Stars Ross 1044 and Ross 825
• Zodiacal Exoplanets in Time (ZEIT) XII: A Directly-Imaged Planetary-Mass Companion to a Young Taurus M Dwarf Star
• A kinematically unbiased, all-sky search for nearby, young, low-mass stars
• The Solar Neighborhood LII: M Dwarf Twin Binaries -- Presumed Identical Twins Appear Fraternal in Variability, Rotation, H$\alpha$, and X-rays
• Light Curve Modulation of Low Mass Stars in K2. I. Identification of 508 Fast Rotators in the Solar Neighborhood
• Orbital characterization of GJ1108A system, and comparison of dynamical mass with model-derived mass for resolved binaries
• Constraints on the Spindown of Fully-Convective M Dwarfs Using Wide Field Binaries