Probing the Origin of Stellar Flares on M dwarfs Using TESS Data Sectors 1-3

Abstract

Detailed studies of the Sun have shown that sunspots and solar flares are closely correlated. Photometric data from Kepler/K2 has allowed similar studies to be carried out on other stars. Here, we utilise TESS photometric 2-min cadence of 167 low mass stars from Sectors 1 - 3 to investigate the relationship between starspots and stellar flares. From our sample, 90 percent show clear rotational modulation likely due to the presence of a large, dominant starspot and we use this to determine a rotational period for each star. Additionally, each low mass star shows one or more flares in its lightcurve and using Gaia DR2 parallaxes and SkyMapper magnitudes we can estimate the energy of the flares in the TESS band-pass. Overall, we have 1834 flares from the 167 low mass stars with energies from $6.0\times 10^{29}$ - $2.4\times 10^{35}$~erg. We find none of the stars in our sample show any preference for rotational phase suggesting the lack of a correlation between the large, dominant star spot and flare number. We discuss this finding in greater detail and present further scenarios to account for the origin of flares on these low mass stars.

arXiv comment10 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (20)

• Gaia Data Release 2. Summary of the contents and survey properties
• The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
• Gaia Data Release 1. Summary of the astrometric, photometric, and survey properties
• Ages for illustrative field stars using gyrochronology: viability, limitations and errors
• Rotation Periods of 34,030 Kepler Main-Sequence Stars: The Full Autocorrelation Sample
• The TESS Input Catalog and Candidate Target List
• Measuring the rotation period distribution of field M-dwarfs with Kepler
• SkyMapper Southern Survey: First Data Release (DR1)
• Kepler Flares II: The Temporal Morphology of White-Light Flares on GJ 1243
• The global and small-scale magnetic fields of fully convective, rapidly spinning M dwarf pair GJ65A and B
• EvryFlare I: Long-term Evryscope Monitoring of Flares from the Cool Stars Across Half the Southern Sky
• Correlation of hard X-ray and white light emission in solar flares
• Investigating the Rotational Phase of Stellar Flares on M dwarfs Using K2 Short Cadence Data
• Surprisingly different starspot distributions on the near equal-mass equal-rotation-rate stars in the M dwarf binary GJ 65 AB
• Complex Rotational Modulation of Rapidly Rotating M-Stars Observed with TESS
• Separating the X-Ray Emissions of UV Ceti A and B with Chandra
• Time-variable electromagnetic star-planet interaction: The TRAPPIST-1 system as an exemplary case
• The Connection between Starspots and Flares on Main-Sequence Kepler Stars
• Short duration high amplitude flares detected on the M dwarf star KIC 5474065
• The Rise of ROME. I. A Multiwavelength Analysis of the Star-Planet Interaction in the HD 189733 System

Cited by in corpus (33)

• Flare Statistics for Young Stars from a Convolutional Neural Network Analysis of $\text{TESS}$ Data
• Superflares on solar-type stars from the first year observation of TESS
• No Such Thing as a Simple Flare: Substructure and QPPs Observed in a Statistical Sample of 20 Second Cadence TESS Flares
• Superflares, chromospheric activities and photometric variabilities of solar-type stars from the second-year observation of TESS and spectra of LAMOST
• Superflares and Variability in Solar-Type Stars with $TESS$ in the Southern Hemisphere
• Stellar flares detected with the Next Generation Transit Survey
• AU Microscopii in the FUV: Observations in Quiescence, During Flares, and Implications for AU Mic b and c
• Gaia Data Release 3. Rotational modulation and patterns of colour variations in solar-like variables
• Searching for flaring star-planet interactions in AU Mic TESS observations
• Stellar Superflares Observed Simultaneously with Kepler and XMM-Newton
• TESS observations of southern ultra fast rotating low mass stars
• Superflares on the late-type giant KIC 2852961 -- Scaling effect behind flaring at different energy levels
• Correcting Stellar Flare Frequency Distributions Detected by TESS and Kepler
• Complex Modulation of Rapidly Rotating Young M Dwarfs: Adding Pieces to the Puzzle
• Observations and modeling of spectral line asymmetries in stellar flares
• New Time-Resolved, Multi-Band Flares In The GJ 65 System With gPhoton
• Radial Velocity Monitoring of the Young Star Hubble 4: Disentangling Starspot Lifetimes from Orbital Motion
• The Puzzling Story of Flare Inactive Ultra Fast Rotating M dwarfs. I. Exploring their Magnetic Fields
• Observed Rate Variation in Superflaring G-type Stars
• A Study of the Magnetic Activity and Variability of GJ 436
• Exploring the short-term variability of H$\alpha$ and H$\beta$ emissions in a sample of M dwarfs
• Convolutional Neural Networks for Searching Superflares from Pixel-level Data of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
• The Puzzling Story of Flare Inactive Ultra Fast Rotating M dwarfs. II. Searching for radial velocity variations
• Observational features of exoplanetary synchrotron radio bursts
• Theoretical and Observational Evidence for Coriolis Effects in Coronal Magnetic Fields Via Direct Current Driven Flaring Events
• Detection of an energetic flare from the M5V secondary star in the Polar MQ Dra
• Flaring Latitudes in Ensembles of Low Mass Stars
• Flare frequency in M dwarfs belonging to Young Moving Groups
• CaII and H$\alpha$ flaring M dwarfs detected with multi-filter photometry
• Localizing flares to understand stellar magnetic fields and space weather in exo-systems
• EvryFlare IV: Detection of periodicity in flare occurrence from cool stars with TESS
• HiPERCAM and TESS observations of the rapidly rotating M7V star LP 89--187
• Exploring stellar activity in a sample of active M dwarfs