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Detection of a giant flare displaying quasi-periodic pulsations from a pre-main sequence M star with NGTS

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posted on 2019-02-04, 14:26 authored by JAG Jackman, PJ Wheatley, CE Pugh, DY Kolotkov, A-M Broomhall, GM Kennedy, SJ Murphy, R Raddi, MR Burleigh, SL Casewell, P Eigmüller, E Gillen, MN Günther, JS Jenkins, T Louden, J McCormac, L Raynard, K Poppenhaeger, S Udry, CA Watson, RG West
We present the detection of an energetic flare on the pre-main-sequence M3 star NGTS J121939.5–355557, which we estimate to be only 2 Myr old. The flare had an energy of 3.2 ±0.4 0.3 ×1036 erg and a fractional amplitude of 7.2 ± 0.8, making it one of the most energetic flares seen on an M star. The star is also X-ray active, in the saturated regime with log LX/LBol = −3.1. In the flare’s peak, we have identified multimode quasi-periodic pulsations formed of two statistically significant periods of approximately 320 and 660 s. This flare is one of the largest amplitude events to exhibit such pulsations. The shorter period mode is observed to start after a short-lived spike in flux lasting around 30 s, which would not have been resolved in Kepler or TESS short-cadence modes. Our data show how the high cadence of the Next Generation Transient Survey (NGTS) can be used to apply solar techniques to stellar flares and to identify potential causes of the observed oscillations. We also discuss the implications of this flare for the habitability of planets around M star hosts and how NGTS can help our understanding of this.

Funding

This research is based on data collected under the NGTS project at the ESO La Silla Paranal Observatory. The NGTS facility is funded by a consortium of institutes consisting of the University of Warwick, the University of Leicester, Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Geneva, the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR; under the ‘Großinvestition GI-NGTS’), the University of Cambridge, together with the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC; project reference ST/M001962/1). JAGJ is supported by STFC PhD studentship 1763096. PJW and RGW are supported by the STFC consolidated grant ST/P000495/1. AMB acknowledges the support of the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick, and is also supported by the STFC consolidated grant ST/P000320/1. MNG is supported by the STFC award reference 1490409 as well as the Isaac Newton Studentship. CEP acknowledges support from the European Research Council under the SeismoSun Research Project No. 321141. JSJ acknowledges support by Fondecyt grant 1161218 and partial support by CATA-Basal (PB06, CONICYT). DYK acknowledges support by the STFC consolidated grant ST/P000320/1. GMK is supported by the Royal Society as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. We also acknowledge and thank the ISSI team led by AMB for useful discussions. This publication makes use of data products from the 2MASS, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. This publication makes use of data products from the WISE, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The national facility capability for SkyMapper has been funded through ARC LIEF grant LE130100104 f

History

Citation

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2019, 482(4) pp. 5553–5566

Author affiliation

/Organisation/COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING/Department of Physics and Astronomy

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP), Royal Astronomical Society

eissn

1365-2966

Acceptance date

2018-11-05

Copyright date

2018

Available date

2019-02-04

Publisher version

https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/482/4/5553/5224549

Language

en

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