The Flaring TESS Objects of Interest: Flare Rates for all Two Minute Cadence TESS Planet Candidates

Abstract

Although more than 5000 TESS Objects of Interest have been cataloged, no comprehensive survey of the flare rates of their host stars exists. We perform the first flare survey of all 2250 non-retired TOIs with 2 min cadence light curves to measure or place upper limits on their flare rates. We find 93 candidates orbit flare stars and measure their flare frequency distributions. Across the sample, TOIs of <1.5R_Earth orbit flare stars more frequently than do TOIs of 1.5<R<2.75R_Earth, 2.75<R<4R_Earth, or R<4R_Earth. We sort all TOI host stars by their flare rate/upper limit, stellar mass, and distance to create a flare ranking metric (FRM) to determine suitability for follow-up. The FRM of each TOI is then checked against the expected signal-to-noise of atmospheric features in transmission spectroscopy to locate the most promising targets. We find 1/4 of terrestrial M-dwarf planets amenable to transmission spectroscopy orbit flare stars. However, none of the M-dwarf hosts to terrestrial planets are currently flaring at sufficient levels for >99.9% atmospheric ozone depletion. We give the first upper limits on the flare rate of the host star to TOI 700 d and explore the flare rates incident on young planets such as DS Tuc Ab.

6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters. Ancillary machine-readable table included

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Cited by in corpus (11)

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• A Seven-Day Multi-Wavelength Flare Campaign on AU Mic I: High-Time Resolution Light Curves and the Thermal Empirical Neupert Effect
• A Second Earth-Sized Planet in the Habitable Zone of the M Dwarf, TOI-700
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• Flares and rotation of M dwarfs with habitable zones accessible to TESS planet detections
• Impact Induced Atmosphere-Mantle Exchange Sets the Volatile Elemental Ratios on Primitive Earths
• Sporadic Spin-Orbit Variations in Compact Multi-planet Systems and their Influence on Exoplanet Climate
• X-ray flares of the young planet host DS Tuc A
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• A transiting multi-planet system in the 61 million year old association Theia 116
• Separating flare and secondary atmospheric signals with RADYN modeling of near-infrared JWST transmission spectroscopy observations of TRAPPIST-1