Recent observations of solar type stars with the Kepler satellite by Maehara et al. have revealed the existence of superflares (with energy of 10^33 - 10^35 erg) on Sun-like stars, which are similar to our Sun in their surface temperature (5600 K - 6000 K) and slow rotation (rotational period > 10 days). From the statistical analysis of these superflares, it was found that superflares with energy 10^34 erg occur once in 800 years and superflares with 10^35 erg occur once in 5000 years on Sun-like stars. In this paper, we examine whether superflares with energy of 10^33 - 10^35 erg could occur on the present Sun through the use of simple order-of-magnitude estimates based on current ideas relating to the mechanisms of the solar dynamo.
@article{arxiv.1212.1361,
title = {Can Superflares Occur on Our Sun?},
author = {Kazunari Shibata and Hiroaki Isobe and Andrew Hillier and Arnab Rai Choudhuri and Hiroyuki Maehara and Takako T. Ishii and Takuya Shibayama and Shota Notsu and Yuta Notsu and Takashi Nagao and Satoshi Honda and Daisaku Nogami},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1212.1361},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Accepted by Publ. Astron. Soc. Japan on Dec. 6, 2012 (to be published on PASJ vol. 65, No. 3, (2013) June 25)