TESS Observations of Outbursts on Polars—Superflares
Flare events are magnetic activities on the stellar surface, which can provide us with information about the accretion behavior and evolution of polars. In this paper, we search for flare events on polars from all the available 2 minute cadence TESS data through visual inspection, and identify six f...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2024-01-01
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| Series: | The Astrophysical Journal |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad2e95 |
| _version_ | 1827278340068737024 |
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| author | Qishan Wang Xiaohui Fang Shengbang Qian |
| author_facet | Qishan Wang Xiaohui Fang Shengbang Qian |
| author_sort | Qishan Wang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Flare events are magnetic activities on the stellar surface, which can provide us with information about the accretion behavior and evolution of polars. In this paper, we search for flare events on polars from all the available 2 minute cadence TESS data through visual inspection, and identify six flare events on five flaring stars from 185 polars. All the flares have bolometric energies above 10 ^34 erg, with a median of ∼10 ^35 erg, so they are superflares. Among them, two flares are followed by a brightness enhancement, which may suggest an accretion burst on the white dwarf caused by a coronal mass ejection. A completeness analysis of the detections demonstrates that the flare activities on the low-mass red dwarfs of polars are very similar to those on M dwarfs, which indicates that the highly magnetic fields of the white dwarfs have no significant effect on the magnetic activities on polars. We estimate that another ∼20–30 polars include a magnetically active secondary star, and more intensive searching for flares on polars is encouraged in further work. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-24T07:53:33Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-a181a654114c449e8884d0149711da7d |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1538-4357 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T07:53:33Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | The Astrophysical Journal |
| spelling | doaj.art-a181a654114c449e8884d0149711da7d2024-04-18T08:55:48ZengIOP PublishingThe Astrophysical Journal1538-43572024-01-01965218110.3847/1538-4357/ad2e95TESS Observations of Outbursts on Polars—SuperflaresQishan Wang0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3886-3883Xiaohui Fang1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4023-9310Shengbang Qian2School of Mathematics, Physics and Finance, Anhui Polytechnic University , Wuhu 241000, People's Republic of ChinaSchool of Mathematics, Physics and Finance, Anhui Polytechnic University , Wuhu 241000, People's Republic of ChinaDepartment of Astronomy, School of Physics and Astronomy, Yunnan University , Kunming 650091, People's Republic of China ; qsb@ynao.ac.cn, fxh@mail.ahpu.edu.cn; Key Laboratory of Astroparticle Physics of Yunnan Province, Yunnan University , Kunming 650091, People's Republic of ChinaFlare events are magnetic activities on the stellar surface, which can provide us with information about the accretion behavior and evolution of polars. In this paper, we search for flare events on polars from all the available 2 minute cadence TESS data through visual inspection, and identify six flare events on five flaring stars from 185 polars. All the flares have bolometric energies above 10 ^34 erg, with a median of ∼10 ^35 erg, so they are superflares. Among them, two flares are followed by a brightness enhancement, which may suggest an accretion burst on the white dwarf caused by a coronal mass ejection. A completeness analysis of the detections demonstrates that the flare activities on the low-mass red dwarfs of polars are very similar to those on M dwarfs, which indicates that the highly magnetic fields of the white dwarfs have no significant effect on the magnetic activities on polars. We estimate that another ∼20–30 polars include a magnetically active secondary star, and more intensive searching for flares on polars is encouraged in further work.https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad2e95AM Herculis starsM dwarf starsMagnetic stars |
| spellingShingle | Qishan Wang Xiaohui Fang Shengbang Qian TESS Observations of Outbursts on Polars—Superflares The Astrophysical Journal AM Herculis stars M dwarf stars Magnetic stars |
| title | TESS Observations of Outbursts on Polars—Superflares |
| title_full | TESS Observations of Outbursts on Polars—Superflares |
| title_fullStr | TESS Observations of Outbursts on Polars—Superflares |
| title_full_unstemmed | TESS Observations of Outbursts on Polars—Superflares |
| title_short | TESS Observations of Outbursts on Polars—Superflares |
| title_sort | tess observations of outbursts on polars superflares |
| topic | AM Herculis stars M dwarf stars Magnetic stars |
| url | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad2e95 |
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