Shota Notsu

Superflares on solar-type stars

Solar flares are caused by the sudden release of magnetic energy stored near sunspots. They release 1029 to 1032 ergs of energy on a timescale of hours. Similar flares have been observed on many stars, with larger ‘superflares’ seen on a variety of stars, some of which are rapidly rotating and some of which are of ordinary solar type. The small number of superflares observed on solar-type stars has hitherto precluded a detailed study of them. Here we report observations of 365 superflares, including some from slowly rotating solar-type stars, from about 83,000 stars observed over 120 days. Quasi-periodic brightness modulations observed in the solar-type stars suggest that they have much larger starspots than does the Sun. The maximum energy of the flare is not correlated with the stellar rotation period, but the data suggest that superflares occur more frequently on rapidly rotating stars. It has been proposed that hot Jupiters may be important in the generation of superflares on solar-type stars, but none have been discovered around the stars that we have studied, indicating that hot Jupiters associated with superflares are rare.

Can Superflares Occur on Our Sun

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.

Superflares on Solar-type Stars Observed with Kepler II. Photometric Variability of Superflare-generating Stars: A Signature of Stellar Rotation and Starspots

We performed simple spot-model calculations for quasi-periodic brightness variations of solar-type stars showing superflares using Kepler photometric data. Most of the superflare stars show quasi-periodic brightness modulations with a typical period of one to a few tens of days. Our results indicate that these brightness variations can be explained by the rotation of a star with fairly large starspots. Using the results of the period analysis, we investigated the relation between the energy and frequency of superflares and the rotation period. Stars with relatively slower rotation rates can still produce flares that are as energetic as those of more rapidly rotating stars although the average flare frequency is lower for more slowly rotating stars. We found that the energy of superflares is related to the total coverage of the starspot. The correlation between the spot coverage and the flare energy in superflares is similar to that in solar flares. These results suggest that the energy of superflares can be explained by the magnetic energy stored around the starspots.

Statistical properties of superflares on solar-type stars based on 1-min cadence data

We searched for superflares on solar-type stars using Kepler data with 1-min sampling in order to detect superflares with a short duration. We found 187 superflares on 23 solar-type stars whose bolometric energy ranges from the order of 1032 to 1036 erg. Some superflares show multiple peaks with the peak separation of the order of 100 to 1,000 s which is comparable to the periods of quasi-periodic pulsations in solar and stellar flares. Using these new data combined with the results from the data with 30-min sampling, we found that the occurrence frequency (dN/dE) of superflares as a function of flare energy (E) shows the power-law distribution (dN/dE∝E−α) with α∼−1.5 for 1033<E<1036 erg which is consistent with the previous results. The average occurrence rate of superflares with the energy of 1033 erg which is equivalent to X100 solar flares is about once in 500 to 600 years. The upper limit of energy released by superflares is basically comparable to a fraction of the magnetic energy stored near starspots which is estimated from the photometry.We also found that the duration of superflares (τ) increases with the flare energy (E) as τ∝E0.39 ± 0.03. This can be explained if we assume the time scale of flares is determined by the Alfvén time.

High-Dispersion Spectroscopy of the Superflare Star KIC 6934317

We conducted the high-resolution spectroscopic observation with Subaru/HDS for a G-type star (KIC6934317). We selected this star from the data of the Kepler spacecraft. This star produces a lot of superflares, and the total energy of the largest superflare on this star is � 10 3 times larger (� 2.2×10 35 erg) than that of the most energetic flare on the Sun (� 10 32 erg). The core depth and emission flux of Ca II infrared triplet lines and Hline show high chromospheric activity in this star, in spite of its low lithium abundance and the small amplitude of the rotational modulation. Using the empirical relations between emission flux of chromospheric lines and X-ray flux, this star is considered to show much higher coronal activity than that of the Sun. It probably has large starspots which can store a large amount of magnetic energy enough to give rise to superflares. We also estimated the stellar parameters, such as effective temperature, surface gravity, metallicity, projected rotational velocity (vsini), and radial velocity. KIC6934317 is then confirmed to be an early G-type main sequence star. The value of vsini is estimated to be �1.91 km s −1 . In contrast, the rotational velocity is calculated to be �20 km s −1 by using the period of the brightness variation as the rotation period. This difference can be explained by its small inclination angle (nearly pole-on). The small inclination angle is also supported by the contrast between the large superflare amplitude and the small stellar brightness variation amplitude. The lithium abundance and isochrones implies that the age of this star is more than about a few Gyr, though a problem why this star with such an age has a strong activity remains unsolved.

High dispersion spectroscopy of solar-type superflare stars. II. Stellar rotation, starspots, and chromospheric activities

We conducted high dispersion spectroscopic observations of 50 superflare stars with Subaru/HDS. These 50 stars were selected from the solar-type superflare stars that we had discovered from the Kepler data. More than half (34 stars) of these 50 target superflare stars show no evidence of binarity, and we estimated stellar parameters of these 34 stars in our previous study (Notsu et al. 2015, hereafter called Paper I). According to our previous studies using Kepler data, superflare stars show quasi-periodic brightness variations whose amplitude (0.1-10\%) is much larger than that of the solar brightness variations (0.01-0.1\%) caused by the existence of sunspots on the rotating solar surface. In this study, we investigated whether these quasi-periodic brightness variations of superflare stars are explained by the rotation of a star with fairly large starspots, by using stellar parameters derived in Paper I. First, we confirmed that the value of the projected rotational velocity

Starspot activity and superflares on solar-type stars

v \sin i

Candidate Water Vapor Lines to Locate the H2O Snowline through High-Dispersion Spectroscopic Observations II. The Case of a Herbig Ae Star

is consistent with the rotational velocity estimated from the period of the brightness variation. Next, we measured the intensity of Ca II infrared triplet lines and H

High dispersion spectroscopy of solar-type superflare stars. III. Lithium abundances

\alpha

Spectroscopic observations of active solar-analog stars with high X-ray luminosity, as a proxy of superflare stars

line, good indicators of the stellar chromospheric activity, and compared them with other stellar properties. The intensity of Ca II infrared triplet lines indicates that the mean magnetic field strength (