M-dwarf Flare Research Articles

M-Dwarf Flare Candidates Simultaneously Observed by K2 and TESS

We present results of a study on the identification of M-dwarf flares using K2 and TESS data. Our sample includes objects observed simultaneously by these two missions, so that we can also compare how flares are identified in the two sets of data. We implement two open-source Python packages, Lightkurve and PyVAN, to work in unison to easily access the data and determine variability in the light curves of 39 M-dwarfs. We identified 13 flare detections in the TESS data while K2 did not provide any reliable detections of flares. We describe the shortcomings of the K2 data that prevented these flares from being identified.

Starspot Mapping with Adaptive Parallel Tempering. II. Application to TESS Data for M-dwarf Flare Stars AU Microscopii, YZ Canis Minoris, and EV Lacertae

Starspots and stellar flares are indicators of stellar magnetic activity. The magnetic energy stored around spots is thought to be the origin of flares, but the connection is not completely understood. To investigate the relation between spot locations deduced from light curves and the occurrence of flares therein, we perform starspot modeling for the TESS light curves of three M-dwarf flare stars, AU Mic, YZ CMi, and EV Lac, using the code implemented in Paper I. The code enables us to deduce multiple stellar/spot parameters by the adaptive parallel tempering algorithm efficiently. We find that flare occurrence frequency is not necessarily correlated with the rotation phases of the light curve for each star. The result of starspot modeling shows that any spot is always visible to the line of sight in all phases, and we suggest that this can be one of the reasons why there is no or low correlation between rotation phases and flare frequency. In addition, the amplitude and shape of the light curve for AU Mic and YZ CMi have varied in two years between different TESS cycles. The result of starspot modeling suggests that this can be explained by the variations of spot size and latitude.

Bridging High-density Electron Beam Coronal Transport and Deep Chromospheric Heating in Stellar Flares

The optical and near-ultraviolet (NUV) continuum radiation in M-dwarf flares is thought to be the impulsive response of the lower stellar atmosphere to magnetic energy release and electron acceleration at coronal altitudes. This radiation is sometimes interpreted as evidence of a thermal photospheric spectrum with T ≈ 104 K. However, calculations show that standard solar flare coronal electron beams lose their energy in a thick target of gas in the upper and middle chromosphere (log10 column mass/[g cm−2] ≲ −3). At larger beam injection fluxes, electric fields and instabilities are expected to further inhibit propagation to low altitudes. We show that recent numerical solutions of the time-dependent equations governing the power-law electrons and background coronal plasma (Langmuir and ion-acoustic) waves from Kontar et al. produce order-of-magnitude larger heating rates than those that occur in the deep chromosphere through standard solar flare electron beam power-law distributions. We demonstrate that the redistribution of beam energy above E ≳ 100 keV in this theory results in a local heating maximum that is similar to a radiative-hydrodynamic model with a large, low-energy cutoff and a hard power-law index. We use this semiempirical forward-modeling approach to produce opaque NUV and optical continua at gas temperatures T ≳ 12,000 K over the deep chromosphere with log10 column mass/[g cm−2] of −1.2 to −2.3. These models explain the color temperatures and Balmer jump strengths in high-cadence M-dwarf flare observations, and they clarify the relation among atmospheric, radiation, and optical color temperatures in stellar flares.

Lower-than-expected flare temperatures for TRAPPIST-1

Aims. Stellar flares emit thermal and nonthermal radiation in the X-ray and ultraviolet (UV) regime. Although high energetic radiation from flares is a potential threat to exoplanet atmospheres and may lead to surface sterilization, it might also provide the extra energy for low-mass stars needed to trigger and sustain prebiotic chemistry. Despite the UV continuum emission being constrained partly by the flare temperature, few efforts have been made to determine the flare temperature for ultra-cool M-dwarfs. We investigate two flares on TRAPPIST-1, an ultra-cool dwarf star that hosts seven exoplanets of which three lie within its habitable zone. The flares are detected in all four passbands of the MuSCAT2 instrument allowing a determination of their temperatures and bolometric energies. Methods. We analyzed the light curves of the MuSCATl (multicolor simultaneous camera for studying atmospheres of transiting exoplanets) and MuSCAT2 instruments obtained between 2016 and 2021 in g, r, i, zs-filters. We conducted an automated flare search and visually confirmed possible flare events. The black body temperatures were inferred directly from the spectral energy distribution (SED) by extrapolating the filter-specific flux. We studied the temperature evolution, the global temperature, and the peak temperature of both flares. Results. White-light M-dwarf flares are frequently described in the literature by a black body with a temperature of 9000–10 000 K. For the first time we infer effective black body temperatures of flares that occurred on TRAPPIST-1. The black body temperatures for the two TRAPPIST-1 flares derived from the SED are consistent with TSED = 7940−390+430 K and TSED = 6030−270+300 K. The flare black body temperatures at the peak are also calculated from the peak SED yielding TSEDp = 13 620−1220+1520 K and TSEDp = 8290−550+660 K. We update the flare frequency distribution of TRAPPIST-1 and discuss the impacts of lower black body temperatures on exoplanet habitability. Conclusions. We show that for the ultra-cool M-dwarf TRAPPIST-1 the flare black body temperatures associated with the total continuum emission are lower and not consistent with the usually adopted assumption of 9000–10 000 K in the context of exoplanet research. For the peak emission, both flares seem to be consistent with the typical range from 9000 to 14 000 K, respectively. This could imply different and faster cooling mechanisms. Further multi-color observations are needed to investigate whether or not our observations are a general characteristic of ultra-cool M-dwarfs. This would have significant implications for the habitability of exoplanets around these stars because the UV surface flux is likely to be overestimated by the models with higher flare temperatures.

First Millimeter Flares Detected from ϵ Eridani with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array

We report the detection of three large millimeter flaring events from the nearby Sun-like, ϵ Eridani, found in archival Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) 12 m and Atacama Compact Array observations at 1.33 mm taken from 2015 January 17 to 18 and 2016 October 24 to November 23, respectively. This is the first time that flares have been detected from a Sun-like star at millimeter wavelengths. The largest flare among our data was detected in the ALMA observations on 2015 January 17 from 20:09:10.4–21:02:49.3 UT with a peak flux density of 28 ± 7 mJy and a duration of 9 s. The peak brightness of the largest flare is 3.4 ± 0.9 × 1014 erg s−1 Hz−1, a factor of >50× times brighter than the star’s quiescent luminosity and >10× brighter than solar flares observed at comparable wavelengths. We find changes in the spectral index (F ν ∝ ν α ) at the flare peak, with α = 1.81 ± 1.94 and a lower limit on the fractional linear polarization ∣Q/I∣ = 0.08 ± 0.12. This positive spectral index is more similar to millimeter solar flares, differing from M-dwarf flares also detected at millimeter wavelengths that exhibit steeply negative spectral indices.

Fast optical flares from M dwarfs detected by a one-second-cadence survey with Tomo-e Gozen

Abstract We report on a one-second-cadence wide-field survey for M-dwarf flares using the Tomo-e Gozen camera mounted on the Kiso Schmidt telescope. We detect 22 flares from M3–M5 dwarfs with a rise time of 5 s ≲ trise ≲ 100 s and an amplitude of 0.5 ≲ ΔF/F⋆ ≲ 20. The flare light-curves mostly show steeper rises and shallower decays than those obtained from the Kepler one-minute cadence data and tend to have flat peak structures. Assuming a blackbody spectrum with a temperature of 9000–15000 K, the peak luminosities and energies are estimated to be 1029 erg s−1 ≲ Lpeak ≲ 1031 erg s−1 and 1031 erg ≲ Eflare ≲ 1034 erg, which constitutes the bright end of fast optical flares for M dwarfs. We confirm that more than $90\%$ of the host stars of the detected flares are magnetically active based on their Hα-emission-line intensities obtained by LAMOST. An estimated occurrence rate of detected flares is ∼0.7 per day per active star, indicating they are common in magnetically active M dwarfs. We argue that the flare light-curves can be explained by the chromospheric compression model: the rise time is broadly consistent with the Alfvén transit time of a magnetic loop with a length scale of lloop ∼ 104 km and a field strength of 1000 gauss, while the decay time is likely determined by the radiative cooling of the compressed chromosphere down near to the photosphere with a temperature of ≳ 10000 K. These flares from M dwarfs could be a major contamination source for a future search of fast optical transients of unknown types.

Discovering vanishing objects in POSS I red images using the Virtual Observatory

ABSTRACT In this paper, we report a search for vanishing sources in POSS I red images using virtual observatory (VO) archives, tools, and services. The search, conducted in the framework of the VASCO project, aims at finding POSS I (red) sources not present in recent catalogues like Pan-STARRS DR2 (limiting magnitude r = 21.4) or Gaia EDR3 (limiting magnitude G = 21). We found 298 165 sources visible only in POSS I plates, out of which 288 770 had a cross-match within 5 arcsec in other archives (mainly in the infrared), 189 were classified as asteroids, 35 as variable objects, 3592 as artefacts from the comparison to a second digitization (Supercosmos), and 180 as high proper motion objects without information on proper motion in Gaia EDR3. The remaining unidentified transients (5399) as well as the 172 163 sources not detected in the optical but identified in the infrared regime are available from a VO compliant archive and can be of interest in searches for strong M-dwarf flares, high-redshift supernovae, asteroids, or other categories of unidentified red transients. No point sources were detected by both POSS-I and POSS-II before vanishing, setting the rate of failed supernovae in the Milky Way during 70 yr to less than one in one billion.

Simulating the Space Weather in the AU Mic System: Stellar Winds and Extreme Coronal Mass Ejections

Abstract Two close-in planets have been recently found around the M-dwarf flare star AU Microscopii (AU Mic). These Neptune-sized planets (AU Mic b and c) seem to be located very close to the so-called “evaporation valley” in the exoplanet population, making this system an important target for studying atmospheric loss on exoplanets. This process, while mainly driven by high-energy stellar radiation, will be strongly mediated by the space environment surrounding the planets. Here we present an investigation of this last area, performing 3D numerical modeling of the quiescent stellar wind from AU Mic, as well as time-dependent simulations describing the evolution of a highly energetic coronal mass ejection (CME) event in this system. Observational constraints on the stellar magnetic field and properties of the eruption are incorporated in our models. We carry out qualitative and quantitative characterizations of the stellar wind, the emerging CMEs, as well as the expected steady and transient conditions along the orbit of both exoplanets. Our results predict extreme space weather for AU Mic and its planets. This includes sub-Alfvénic regions for the large majority of the exoplanet orbits, very high dynamic and magnetic pressure values in quiescence (varying within 102–105 times the dynamic pressure experienced by Earth), and an even harsher environment during the passage of any escaping CME associated with the frequent flaring observed in AU Mic. These space weather conditions alone pose an immense challenge for the survival of exoplanetary atmospheres (if any) in this system.

New Time-resolved, Multi-band Flares in the GJ 65 System with gPhoton

Abstract Characterizing the distribution of flare properties and occurrence rates is important for understanding habitability of M-dwarf exoplanets. The Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) space telescope observed the GJ 65 system, composed of the active, flaring M stars BL Cet and UV Cet, for 15,900 s (∼4.4 hr) in two ultraviolet (UV) bands. The contrast in flux between flares and the photospheres of cool stars is maximized at UV wavelengths, and GJ 65 is the brightest and nearest flaring M-dwarf system with significant GALEX coverage. It therefore represents the best opportunity to measure low-energy flares with GALEX. We construct high-cadence lightcurves from calibrated photon events and find 13 new flare events with near-UV (NUV) energies ranging from 1028.5–1029.5 erg and recover one previously reported flare with an energy of 1031 erg. The newly reported flares are among the smallest M-dwarf flares observed in the UV with sufficient time resolution to discern lightcurve morphology. The estimated flare frequency at these low energies is consistent with extrapolation from the distributions of higher-energy flares on active M dwarfs measured by other surveys. The largest flare in our sample is bright enough to exceed the local nonlinearity threshold of the GALEX detectors, which precludes color analysis. However, we detect quasi-periodic pulsations during this flare in both the far-UV and NUV bands at a period of ∼50 s, which we interpret as a modulation of the flare’s chromospheric thermal emission through periodic triggering of reconnection by external MHD oscillations in the corona.

The Contribution of M-dwarf Flares to the Thermal Escape of Potentially Habitable Planet Atmospheres

Abstract The habitability of planets around M dwarfs (≲0.5 M ⊙) can be affected by the X-rays + extreme UV (XUV) emission of these stars, with flares occasionally increasing the XUV flux by more than 2 orders of magnitude above quiescent levels. This wavelength range can warm and ionize terrestrial planets’ upper atmospheres, which expands the planetary radius and promotes atmospheric loss. In this work, we study the contribution of the XUV flux due to flares on the atmospheric escape of Earth-like planets orbiting M dwarfs through numerical simulations. We considered the first Gyr of planets with initial surface water abundances between 1 and 10 terrestrial oceans (TO), a small primordial hydrogen envelope (≤10−3 M ⊕), and with host-star masses between 0.2 and 0.6 M ⊙. In this parameter range, we find that flares can remove up to two TO more than nonflaring stars, which, in some cases, translates to a doubling of the total water loss. We also find that flaring can increase atmospheric oxygen partial pressures by hundreds of bars in some cases. These results were obtained by adding a new module for flares to the VPLanet software package and upgrading its atmospheric escape module to account for Roche lobe overflow and radiation/recombination-limited escape.

Discovery of a Long-duration Superflare on a Young Solar-type Star EK Draconis with Nearly Similar Time Evolution for Hα and White-light Emissions

Abstract Young solar-type stars are known to show frequent “superflares,” which may severely influence the habitable worlds on young planets via intense radiation and coronal mass ejections. Here we report an optical spectroscopic and photometric observation of a long-duration superflare on the young solar-type star EK Draconis (50–120 Myr age) with the Seimei telescope and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. The flare energy 2.6 × 1034 erg and white-light flare duration 2.2 hr are much larger than those of the largest solar flares, and this is the largest superflare on a solar-type star ever detected by optical spectroscopy. The Hα emission profile shows no significant line asymmetry, meaning no signature of a filament eruption, unlike the only previous detection of a superflare on this star. Also, it did not show significant line broadening, indicating that the nonthermal heating at the flare footpoints is not essential or that the footpoints are behind the limb. The time evolution and duration of the Hα flare are surprisingly almost the same as those of the white-light flare, which is different from general M-dwarf (super-)flares and solar flares. This unexpected time evolution may suggest that different radiation mechanisms than general solar flares are predominant, such as: (1) radiation from (off-limb) flare loops and (2) re-radiation via radiative back-warming, in both of which the cooling timescales of flare loops could determine the timescales of Hα and white light.

Optical and X-ray observations of stellar flares on an active M dwarf AD Leonis with the Seimei Telescope, SCAT, NICER, and OISTER

Abstract We report on multi-wavelength monitoring observations of an M-dwarf flare star AD Leonis with the Seimei Telescope (6150–7930 Å), SCAT (Spectroscopic Chuo-university Astronomical Telescope; 3700–7500 Å), and NICER (Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer; 0.2–12.0 keV), with the collaboration of the OISTER (Optical and Infrared Synergetic Telescopes for Education and Research) program. Twelve flares are detected in total, including ten Hα, four X-ray, and four optical-continuum flares; one of them is a superflare with a total energy of ∼2.0 × 1033 erg. We found that: (1) during the superflare, the Hα emission line full width at 1/8 maximum dramatically increases to 14 Å from 8 Å in the low-resolution spectra (R ∼ 2000) accompanied by large white-light flares, (2) some weak Hα/X-ray flares are not accompanied by white-light emissions, and (3) the non-flaring emissions show clear rotational modulations in X-ray and Hα intensity in the same phase. To understand these observational features, one-dimensional hydrodynamic flare simulations are performed using the RADYN code. We find the simulated Hα line profiles with hard and high-energy non-thermal electron beams to be consistent with the initial phase line profiles of the superflares, while those with a softer and/or weak-energy beam are consistent with those in decay phases, indicating the changes in the energy fluxes injected to the lower atmosphere. Also, we find that the relation between the optical continuum and Hα intensity is nonlinear, which can be one cause of the non-white-light flares. The flare energy budget exhibits diversity in the observations and models, and more observations of stellar flares are necessary for constraining the occurrence of various emission line phenomena in stellar flares.

A Catalog of M-dwarf Flares with ASAS-SN

Abstract We analyzed the light curves of 1376 early-to-late, nearby M dwarfs to search for white-light flares using photometry from the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae. We identified 480 M dwarfs with at least one potential flare employing a simple statistical algorithm that searches for sudden increases in V-band flux. After more detailed evaluation, we identified 62 individual flares on 62 stars. The event amplitudes range from mag. Using classical flare models, we place lower limits on the flare energies and obtain V-band energies spanning erg. The fraction of flaring stars increases with spectral type, and most flaring stars show moderate to strong Hα emission. Additionally, we find that 14 of the 62 flaring stars are rotational variables, and they have shorter rotation periods and stronger Hα emission than nonflaring rotational variable M dwarfs.

The Vanishing and Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations Project. I. USNO Objects Missing in Modern Sky Surveys and Follow-up Observations of a “Missing Star”

Abstract In this paper we report the current status of a new research program. The primary goal of the “Vanishing and Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations” project is to search for vanishing and appearing sources using existing survey data to find examples of exceptional astrophysical transients. The implications of finding such objects extend from traditional astrophysics fields to the more exotic searches for evidence of technologically advanced civilizations. In this first paper we present new, deeper observations of the tentative candidate discovered by Villarroel et al. in 2016. We then perform the first searches for vanishing objects throughout the sky by comparing 600 million objects from the US Naval Observatory Catalogue (USNO) B1.0 down to a limiting magnitude of ∼20–21 with the recent Pan-STARRS Data Release-1 (DR1) with a limiting magnitude of ∼23.4. We find about 150,000 preliminary candidates that do not have any Pan-STARRS counterpart within a 30″ radius. We show that these objects are redder and have larger proper motions than typical USNO objects. We visually examine the images for a subset of about 24,000 candidates, superseding the 2016 study with a sample 10 times larger. We find about 100 point sources visible in only one epoch in the red band of the USNO, which may be of interest in searches for strong M-dwarf flares, high-redshift supernovae, or other categories of unidentified red transients.

Photometric flaring fraction of M dwarf stars from the SkyMapper Southern Survey

ABSTRACT We present our search for flares from M dwarf stars in the SkyMapper Southern Survey DR1, which covers nearly the full Southern hemisphere with six-filter sequences that are repeatedly observed in the passbands uvgriz. This allows us to identify bona fide flares in single-epoch observations on time-scales of less than four minutes. Using a correlation-based outlier search algorithm we find 254 flare events in the amplitude range of Δu ∼ 0.1 to 5 mag. In agreement with previous work, we observe the flaring fraction of M dwarfs to increase from ∼30 to ∼1000 per million stars for spectral types M0 to M5. We also confirm the decrease in flare fraction with larger vertical distance from the Galactic plane which is expected from declining stellar activity with age. Based on precise distances from Gaia DR2, we find a steep decline in the flare fraction from the plane to 150 pc vertical distance and a significant flattening towards larger distances. We then reassess the strong type dependence in the flaring fraction with a volume-limited sample within a distance of 50 pc from the Sun: in this sample the trend disappears and we find instead a constant fraction of ∼1 650 per million stars for spectral types M1 to M5. Finally, large-amplitude flares with Δi > 1 mag are very rare with a fraction of ∼0.5 per million M dwarfs. Hence, we expect that M-dwarf flares will not confuse SkyMapper’s search for kilonovae from gravitational-wave events. proper references for those databases (or follow their guideline on citation).

Building the Evryscope: Hardware Design and Performance

The Evryscope is a telescope array designed to open a new parameter space in optical astronomy, detecting short-timescale events across extremely large sky areas simultaneously. The system consists of a 780 MPix 22-camera array with an 8150 sq. deg. field of view, 13″ per pixel sampling, and the ability to detect objects down to in each 2-minute dark-sky exposure. The Evryscope, covering 18,400 sq. deg. with hours of high-cadence exposure time each night, is designed to find the rare events that require all-sky monitoring, including transiting exoplanets around exotic stars like white dwarfs and hot subdwarfs, stellar activity of all types within our galaxy, nearby supernovae, and other transient events such as gamma-ray bursts and gravitational-wave electromagnetic counterparts. The system averages 5000 images per night with ∼300,000 sources per image, and to date has taken over 3.0M images, totaling 250 TB of raw data. The resulting light curve database has light curves for 9.3M targets, averaging 32,600 epochs per target through 2018. This paper summarizes the hardware and performance of the Evryscope, including the lessons learned during telescope design, electronics design, a procedure for the precision polar alignment of mounts for Evryscope-like systems, robotic control and operations, and safety and performance-optimization systems. We measure the on-sky performance of the Evryscope, discuss its data analysis pipelines, and present some example variable star and eclipsing binary discoveries from the telescope. We also discuss new discoveries of very rare objects including two hot subdwarf eclipsing binaries with late M-dwarf secondaries (HW Vir systems), two white dwarf/hot subdwarf short-period binaries, and four hot subdwarf reflection binaries. We conclude with the status of our transit surveys, M-dwarf flare survey, and transient detection.

Time-resolved spectroscopic observations of an M-dwarf flare star EV Lacertae during a flare

Abstract We have performed five night spectroscopic observations of the Hα line of EV Lac with a medium wavelength resolution (R ∼ 10000) using the 2 m Nayuta telescope at the Nishi-Harima Astronomical Observatory. EV Lac always possesses the Hα emission line; however, its intensity was stronger on 2015 August 15 than during the other four night periods. On this night, we observed a rapid rise (∼20 min) and a subsequent slow decrease (∼1.5 hr) of the emission-line intensity of Hα, which was probably caused by a flare. We also found an asymmetrical change in the Hα line on the same night. The enhancement has been observed in the blue wing of the Hα line during each phase of this flare (from the flare start to the flare end), and absorption components were present in its red wing during the early and later phases of the flare. Such blue enhancement (blue asymmetry) of the Hα line is sometimes seen during solar flares, but only during the early phases. Even for solar flares, little is known about the origin of the blue asymmetry. Compared with solar flare models, the presented results can lead to better understanding of the dynamics of stellar flares.

GPhoton: THE GALEX PHOTON DATA ARCHIVE

ABSTRACT gPhoton is a new database product and software package that enables analysis of GALEX ultraviolet data at the photon level. The project’s stand-alone, pure-Python calibration pipeline reproduces the functionality of the original mission pipeline to reduce raw spacecraft data to lists of time-tagged, sky-projected photons, which are then hosted in a publicly available database by the Mikulski Archive at Space Telescope. This database contains approximately 130 terabytes of data describing approximately 1.1 trillion sky-projected events with a timestamp resolution of five milliseconds. A handful of Python and command-line modules serve as a front end to interact with the database and to generate calibrated light curves and images from the photon-level data at user-defined temporal and spatial scales. The gPhoton software and source code are in active development and publicly available under a permissive license. We describe the motivation, design, and implementation of the calibration pipeline, database, and tools, with emphasis on divergence from prior work, as well as challenges created by the large data volume. We summarize the astrometric and photometric performance of gPhoton relative to the original mission pipeline. For a brief example of short time-domain science capabilities enabled by gPhoton, we show new flares from the known M-dwarf flare star CR Draconis. The gPhoton software has permanent object identifiers with the ASCL (ascl:1603.004) and DOI (doi:10.17909/T9CC7G). This paper describes the software as of version v1.27.2.

A SEARCH FOR AN OPTICAL COUNTERPART TO THE GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE EVENT GW151226

We present a search for an electromagnetic counterpart of the gravitational-wave source GW151226. Using the Pan-STARRS1 telescope we mapped out 290 square degrees in the optical iP1 filter, starting 11.5 hr after the LIGO information release and lasting for an additional 28 days. The first observations started 49.5 hr after the time of the GW151226 detection. We typically reached sensitivity limits of iP1 = 20.3–20.8 and covered 26.5% of the LIGO probability skymap. We supplemented this with ATLAS survey data, reaching 31% of the probability region to shallower depths of m ≃ 19. We found 49 extragalactic transients (that are not obviously active galactic nuclei), including a faint transient in a galaxy at 7 Mpc (a luminous blue variable outburst) plus a rapidly decaying M-dwarf flare. Spectral classification of 20 other transient events showed them all to be supernovae. We found an unusual transient, PS15dpn, with an explosion date temporally coincident with GW151226, that evolved into a type Ibn supernova. The redshift of the transient is secure at z = 0.1747 ± 0.0001 and we find it unlikely to be linked, since the luminosity distance has a negligible probability of being consistent with that of GW151226. In the 290 square degrees surveyed we therefore do not find a likely counterpart. However we show that our survey strategy would be sensitive to NS–NS mergers producing kilonovae at DL ≲ 100 Mpc, which is promising for future LIGO/Virgo searches.

GALEXhigh time-resolution ultraviolet observations of dMe flare events

We present near ultraviolet (NUV:1750 - 2800\AA) and far ultraviolet (FUV: 1350 - 1750\AA) light-curves for flares on 4 nearby dMe-type stars (GJ 3685A, CR Dra, AF Psc and SDSS J084425.9+513830.5) observed with the GALEX satellite. Taking advantage of the time-tagged events recorded with the GALEX photon counting detectors, we present high temporal resolution (<0.01 sec) analysis of these UV flare data. A statistical analysis of 700 seconds of pre-flare quiescence data for both CR Dra and SDSS J084425.9+513830.5 failed to reveal the presence of significant micro-flare activity in time bins of 0.2, 1 and 10 second intervals. Using an appropriate differential emission measure for both the quiescent and flaring state, it is possible to reproduce the observed FUV:NUV flux ratios. A major determinant in reproducing this flux ratio is found to be the value of plasma electron density during the flare. We also searched the count rate data recorded during each of the four flare events for periodicity associated with magneto-hydrodynamic oscillations in the active region coronal loops. Significant oscillations were detected during the flare events observed on all 4 stars, with periodicities found in the 30 to 40 second range. Flare oscillations with this periodicity can be explained as acoustic waves in a coronal loop of length of $\approx 10^{9}$ cm for an assumed plasma temperature of $5-20 \times 10^{6}$K. This suggests a loop length for these M-dwarf flares of less than $1/10^{th}$ of the stellar radii. We believe that this is the first detection of non-solar coronal loop flare oscillations observed at ultraviolet wavelengths.