A Flare-Type IV Burst Event from Proxima Centauri and Implications for Space Weather

Abstract

Studies of solar radio bursts play an important role in understanding the dynamics and acceleration processes behind solar space weather events, and the influence of solar magnetic activity on solar system planets. Similar low-frequency bursts detected from active M-dwarfs are expected to probe their space weather environments and therefore the habitability of their planetary companions. Active M-dwarfs produce frequent, powerful flares which, along with radio emission, reveal conditions within their atmospheres. However, to date, only one candidate solar-like coherent radio burst has been identified from these stars, preventing robust observational constraints on their space weather environment. During simultaneous optical and radio monitoring of the nearby dM5.5e star Proxima Centauri, we detected a bright, long-duration optical flare, accompanied by a series of intense, coherent radio bursts. These detections include the first example of an interferometrically detected coherent stellar radio burst temporally coincident with a flare, strongly indicating a causal relationship between these transient events. The polarization and temporal structure of the trailing long-duration burst enable us to identify it as a type IV burst. This represents the most compelling detection of a solar-like radio burst from another star to date. Solar type IV bursts are strongly associated with space weather events such as coronal mass ejections and solar energetic particle events, suggesting that stellar type IV bursts may be used as a tracer of stellar coronal mass ejections. We discuss the implications of this event for the occurrence of coronal mass ejections from Proxima Cen and other active M-dwarfs.

18 pages, 7 figures, 1 table. Published in the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (35)

• emcee: The MCMC Hammer
• The NumPy array: a structure for efficient numerical computation
• Gaia Data Release 2. Summary of the contents and survey properties
• The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
• Binary companions of evolved stars in APOGEE DR14: Search method and catalog of ~5,000 companions
• A terrestrial planet candidate in a temperate orbit around Proxima Centauri
• The Solar Neighborhood XVII: Parallax Results from the CTIOPI 0.9m Program -- Twenty New Members of the RECONS 10 Parsec Sample
• Global Energetics of Thirty-Eight Large Solar Eruptive Events
• A Review of Solar Type III Radio Bursts
• The Wide Field Spectrograph (WiFeS)
• Kepler Flares II: The Temporal Morphology of White-Light Flares on GJ 1243
• Coherent Emission Mechanisms in Astrophysical Plasmas
• Kepler Planet Occurrence Rates for Mid-Type M Dwarfs as a Function of Spectral Type
• Connecting Flares and Transient Mass Loss Events in Magnetically Active Stars
• From Radio to X-ray: Flares on the dMe Flare Star EV Lacertae
• PyWiFeS: A Rapid Data Reduction Pipeline for the Wide Field Spectrograph (WiFeS)
• Coherent radio emission from a quiescent red dwarf indicative of star-planet interaction
• The Stellar CME-flare relation: What do historic observations reveal?
• Ultra-Wideband Detection of 22 Coherent Radio Bursts on M Dwarfs
• A stellar flare-coronal mass ejection event revealed by X-ray plasma motions
• The First Naked-Eye Superflare Detected from Proxima Centauri
• The quest for stellar coronal mass ejections in late-type stars: I. Investigating Balmer-line asymmetries of single stars in Virtual Observatory data
• The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder: Performance of the Boolardy Engineering Test Array
• Constraining Stellar Coronal Mass Ejections Through Multi-Wavelength Analysis of the Active M Dwarf EQ Peg
• The full spectral radiative properties of Proxima Centauri
• Flaring activity of Proxima Centauri from TESS observations: quasi-periodic oscillations during flare decay and inferences on the habitability of Proxima b
• ASKAP Detection of Periodic and Elliptically Polarized Radio Pulses from UV Ceti
• A Monster CME Obscuring A Demon Star Flare
• 154 MHz detection of faint, polarized flares from UV Ceti
• The Search for Signatures Of Transient Mass Loss in Active Stars
• Variable emission mechanism of a Type IV radio burst
• Tuning the Exo-Space Weather Radio for Stellar Coronal Mass Ejections
• Prospects for radio detection of stellar plasma beams
• The Zadko Telescope: Exploring the transient Universe
• Observing Flare Stars Below 100 MHz with the LWA

Cited by in corpus (39)

• Probable detection of an eruptive filament from a superflare on a solar-type star
• Discovery of an Extremely Short Duration Flare from Proxima Centauri Using Millimeter through FUV Observations
• Coherent radio bursts from known M-dwarf planet host YZ Ceti
• Low-frequency monitoring of flare star binary CR Draconis: Long-term electron-cyclotron maser emission
• APO & SMARTS flare star campaign observations I. Blue wing asymmetries in chromospheric lines during mid M dwarf flares from simultaneous spectroscopic and photometric observation data
• Analysis of the Breakthrough Listen signal of interest blc1 with a technosignature verification framework
• Stellar Coronal Mass Ejections
• Torus-Stable Zone Above Starspots
• A radio technosignature search towards Proxima Centauri resulting in a signal-of-interest
• Fine structures of radio bursts from flare star AD Leo with FAST observations
• A comprehensive search for the radio counterpart of GW190814 with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder
• The TESS View of LOFAR Radio-Emitting Stars
• Serendipitous discovery of radio flaring behaviour from a nearby M dwarf with MeerKAT
• Energetic particle activity in AD Leo: Detection of a solar-like type-IV burst
• The Habitable-zone Planet Finder Detects a Terrestrial-mass Planet Candidate Closely Orbiting Gliese 1151: The Likely Source of Coherent Low-frequency Radio Emission from an Inactive Star
• The detection of radio emission from known X-ray flaring star EXO 040830-7134.7
• Revisiting the space weather environment of Proxima Centauri b
• MHD simulations of the space weather in Proxima b: Habitability conditions and radio emission
• The Mouse that Squeaked: A small flare from Proxima Cen observed in the millimeter, optical, and soft X-ray with Chandra and ALMA
• EMISSA -- Exploring Millimeter Indicators of Solar-Stellar Activity I. The Initial mm-cm Main Sequence Star Sample
• Radio Burst from a Stellar Coronal Mass Ejection
• Radio Variable and Transient Sources on Minute Timescales in the ASKAP Pilot Surveys
• A Search for Optical Laser Emission from Proxima Centauri
• Searching for stellar flares from low mass stars using ASKAP and TESS
• Radio Transients and Variables in the Tenth Deeper, Wider, Faster Observing Run
• Do Young Suns Produce Frequent, Massive CMEs? Results from Five-year Dedicated Optical Observations of EK Draconis and V889 Hercules
• Inter-planetary type-IV solar radio bursts: A comprehensive catalog and statistical results
• Starspots as the origin of ultrafast drifting radio bursts from an active M dwarf
• Polarization Criterion in Targeted SETI Observation
• The Proxima Centauri Campaign -- First Constraints On Millimeter Flare Rates from ALMA
• Novel scaling laws to derive spatially resolved flare and CME parameters from sun-as-a-star observables
• Detection of an energetic flare from the M5V secondary star in the Polar MQ Dra
• The ASKAP Variables and Slow Transients (VAST) Pilot Survey
• Polarized, variable radio emission from the scallop-shell binary system DG CVn
• Inferring hemispheric asymmetries of stellar active regions through the information content of astrometric signals
• System equivalent flux density of Stokes I, Q, U, V of a polarimetric interferometer
• Radio emission from flaring stars and brown dwarfs
• Comparison of solar multifrequency microwave data with other solar indices for understanding solar and stellar microwave data
• Radio Emission from UV Cet: Auroral Emission from a Stellar Magnetosphere