K2 ultracool dwarfs survey. III. M6-L0 flares

DOI

We report the white light flare rates for 10 ultracool dwarfs using Kepler K2 short-cadence data. Among our sample stars, two have spectral type M6, three are M7, three are M8, and two are L0. Most of our targets are old low-mass stars. We identify a total of 283 flares in all of the stars in our sample, with Kepler energies in the range log E_Kp_~(29-33.5)erg. Using the maximum-likelihood method of line fitting, we find that the flare frequency distribution (FFD) for each star in our sample follows a power law with slope -{alpha} in the range -(1.3-2.0). We find that cooler objects tend to have shallower slopes. For some of our targets, the FFD follows either a broken power law, or a power law with an exponential cutoff. For the L0 dwarf 2MASSJ12321827-0951502, we find a very shallow slope (-{alpha}=-1.3) in the Kepler energy range (0.82-130)x10^30^erg: this L0 dwarf has flare rates which are comparable to those of high-energy flares in stars of earlier spectral types. In addition, we report photometry of two superflares: one on the L0 dwarf 2MASS J12321827-0951502 and another on the M7 dwarf 2MASS J08352366+1029318. In the case of 2MASSJ12321827-0951502, we report a flare brightening by a factor of ~144 relative to the quiescent photospheric level. Likewise, for 2MASSJ08352366+1029318, we report a flare brightening by a factor of ~60 relative to the quiescent photospheric level. These two superflares have bolometric (ultraviolet/optical/infrared) energies 3.6x10^33^erg and 8.9x10^33^erg respectively, while the full width half maximum timescales are very short, ~2min. We find that the M8 star TRAPPIST-1 is more active than the M8.5 dwarf 2M03264453+1919309, but less active than another M8 dwarf (2M12215066-0843197).

Cone search capability for table J/ApJ/858/55/targets (Properties and median fluxes of targets (Tables 1 and 2))

Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.18580055
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/858/55
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/858/55
Related Identifier http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/858/55
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/858/55
Provenance
Creator Paudel R.R.; Gizis J.E.; Mullan D.J.; Schmidt S.J.; Burgasser A.J.,Williams P.K.G.; Berger E.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2019
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics; Stellar Astronomy