English

Flaring Activity for Low-Mass Stars in the $\beta$ Pictoris Moving Group

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2024-08-09 v1 Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Abstract

Stellar flares from K and M dwarfs release panchromatic radiation characterized by a significantly higher brightness temperature (\sim9-20 kK) than the star. The increased frequency of magnetic activity on young low-mass stars results in the energy released during flaring events becoming a notable contributor to the radiation environment. This study focuses on the β\beta Pictoris moving group (24 ±\pm 3 Myr) for the analysis of young, low-mass star flaring rates within the framework of larger flare studies. The calibration of long-term optical flare statistics is crucial to updating flare activity-age relations and the interpretation of exoplanet atmosphere observations. Using the β\beta Pictoris moving group, we develop a modular flare extraction pipeline sensitive to low-mass stellar flares in observations from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. This pipeline is built to characterize flare properties of these stars such as total energy and cumulative flare rate. Consistent with previous studies, this sample (N=49) shows higher cumulative flare rates than early type and old field stars by at least an order of magnitude. Fitted flare frequency distributions for both early and late type M dwarfs show an average slope of 1.58±0.231.58 \pm 0.23 with earlier stars flaring with lower or similar rates to late types. A typical member in this sample has daily (1d1\mathrm{\sim 1 \, d^{-1}} ) flares with TESS band energies of 1032103310^{32} - 10^{33} ergs. The optical flare rates and energies for this group provide essential context into the co-evolution of host stars and associated planets.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2408.04624,
  title  = {Flaring Activity for Low-Mass Stars in the $\beta$ Pictoris Moving Group},
  author = {Jordan N. Ealy and Joshua E. Schlieder and Thaddeus D. Komacek and Emily A. Gilbert},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.04624},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

13 pages, 7 figures, Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal