Abstract

Contributed Talk - Splinter Stellar

Friday, 25 September 2020, 12:14   (virtual room M)

From ZAMS to solar age: Calibrating the flaring-age-mass relation in open clusters

E. Ilin [1,2], S.J. Schmidt [1], K. Poppenhäger [1,2], J.R.A. Davenport [3], M.H. Kristiansen [4,5]
[1] AIP, [2] U Potsdam, [3] UW Seattle, [4] DTU Space, [5] Brorfelde Observatory

Flares, energetic eruptions on the surfaces of stars, are an unmistakable manifestation of magnetically driven emission. The occurrence rates and energy distributions of flares trace stellar characteristics such as mass and age, and affect the space weather conditions of exoplanets in their orbits. To calibrate the relation between age, mass and flares, we quantified flaring activity of independently age-dated main sequence stars, ranging from early G to mid-M dwarfs, using optical light curves obtained by the Kepler satellite during the K2 mission. We searched for, and confirmed >3800 flares on >2100 high probability open cluster members with ages ranging from 135 Myr (Pleiades) to 3.6 Gyr (M67), including the Hyades (690 Myr), Praesepe (750 Myr), and Ruprecht 147 (2.6 Gyr). Our results illuminate how flaring activity evolves on the main sequence. In this talk, I propose a picture of stellar spin-down and flaring activity evolution that are intimately tied to each other but are likely far from standard Skumanich-type decay.