English

Superflare on a rapidly-rotating solar-type star captured in X-rays

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2024-12-13 v2

Abstract

In this work, we studied X-ray source SRGe~J021932.4-040154 (SRGe J021932), which we associated with a single X-ray active star of spectral class G2V-G4V and the rotational period Prot<9.3\rm P_{rot} < 9.3 days. Additional analysis of TESS light-curves allowed for the rotational period estimation of 3.2±0.53.2 \pm 0.5 days. SRGe J021932 was observed with the SRG/eROSITA during eUDS survey in 2019 in a much dimmer state compared to the XMM-Newton catalogue 4XMM-DR12. Detailed analysis revealed that the archival XMM-Newton observations captured the source during a flaring event in 2017. The XMM-Newton light curve demonstrates a strong flare described with the Gaussian rise and exponential decay, typical for stellar flares, characterized by timescales of 400{\sim}400~s and 1300{\sim}1300~s, respectively. The spectral analysis of the quiescent state reveals 10{\sim}10~MK plasma at luminosity of (1.4±0.4)×1029(1.4\pm0.4) \times 10^{29} erg/s (0.3-4.5 keV). The spectrum of the flare is characterized by temperature of 40{\sim}40 MK and luminosity (5.5±0.6)×1030(5.5\pm0.6)\times 10^{30} erg/s. The total energy emitted during the flare 1.7×1034{\sim}1.7 \times 10^{34} erg exceeds the canonical threshold of 103310^{33} erg, allowing us to classify the observed event as a superflare on a rapidly-rotating solar-type star. Additionally, we present the upper limit on the surface starspot area based on the brightness variations and consider the hypothesis of the object being a binary system with G-type and M-type stars, suggested by two independent estimations of radial velocity variations from APOGEE-2 and Gaia.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2408.07442,
  title  = {Superflare on a rapidly-rotating solar-type star captured in X-rays},
  author = {Andrey Mukhin and Roman Krivonos and Ilfan Bikmaev and Mark Gorbachev and Irek Khamitov and Sergey Sazonov and Marat Gilfanov and Rashid Sunyaev},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.07442},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

Published in Journal of High Energy Astrophysics

R2 v1 2026-06-28T18:12:42.378Z