English

X-ray counterparts to stellar MeerKAT Galactic-plane compact radio sources

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2026-02-03 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

Radio emission from magnetically active stars arises mainly from non-thermal processes and complements high-energy X-ray emission. Sensitive, wide-field radio and X-ray surveys now allow identification of larger samples of active stars across the Galaxy. We aim to identify and characterise radio and X-ray-emitting stars in the Galactic plane by combining MeerKAT radio data with soft X-ray observations and assess their consistency with the canonical G\"udel-Benz relation, which links thermal coronal X-rays to non-thermal gyrosynchrotron radio emission. We cross-matched compact sources from the SARAO MeerKAT Galactic Plane Survey with counterparts from the ROSAT All-Sky Survey and the first release of SRG/eROSITA (eRASS1). We computed radio-brightness temperatures and radio-X-ray luminosities to test the relation. We identify 137 stars with both radio and X-ray detections. Their TBT_B ranges from 10710^7 to 101210^{12} K, except two outliers: AXJ1600.9-5142 (4.8±1.5×10124.8 \pm 1.5 \times 10^{12} K) and HD~124831 (8±1×1068 \pm 1 \times 10^{6} K). The remainder are consistent with incoherent gyrosynchrotron emission. The sample lies below the canonical G\"udel-Benz relation, driven by enhanced 1.3 GHz radio luminosities relative to the 5 GHz relation. This suggests the classical relation represents an upper envelope rather than a tight correlation. Additionally, eROSITA detections show early-type stars lie below the typical log(LX/Lbol)3\log (L_{\rm X}/L_{\rm bol}) \sim -3 relation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.02054,
  title  = {X-ray counterparts to stellar MeerKAT Galactic-plane compact radio sources},
  author = {O. D. Egbo and P. J. Groot and D. A. H. Buckley and J. Robrade and A. D. Schwope and S. Freund and P. C. Schneider and B. Stelzer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.02054},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

11 pages, 10 figures, paper accepted in A&A