Properties of flares and CMEs on EV Lac: possible erupting filament
Priscilla Muheki, E. W. Guenther, Tom Mutabazi, Edward Jurua
Abstract
ABSTRACT Flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are very powerful events in which energetic radiation and particles are ejected within a short time. These events thus can strongly affect planets that orbit these stars. This is particularly relevant for planets of M-stars, because these stars stay active for a long time during their evolution and yet potentially habitable planets orbit at short distance. Unfortunately, not much is known about the relation between flares and CMEs in M-stars as only very few CMEs have so far been observed in M-stars. In order to learn more about flares and CMEs on M-stars, we monitored the active M-star EV Lac spectroscopically at high resolution. We find 27 flares with energies between 1.6 × 1031 and 1.4 × 1032 erg in $\rm H\alpha$ during 127 h of spectroscopic monitoring and 49 flares with energies between 6.3 × 1031 and 1.1 × 1033 erg during the 457 h of Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) observation. Statistical analysis shows that the ratio of the continuum flux in the TESS band to the energy emitted in $\rm H\alpha$ is 10.408 ± 0.026. Analysis of the spectra shows an increase in the flux of the He ii 4686 Å line during the impulsive phase of some flares. In three large flares, we detect a continuum source with a temperature between 6900 and 23 000 K. In none of the flares we find a clear CME event indicating that these must be very rare in active M-stars. However, in one relatively weak event, we found an asymmetry in the Balmer lines of ${\sim}220\, \rm km\, s^{-1}$, which we interpret as a signature of an erupting filament.