A search for flares and mass ejections on young late-type stars in the open cluster Blanco-1

TL;DR

This study investigates stellar activity in young stars of Blanco-1, detecting several flares but no clear coronal mass ejections, and discusses the detection limits related to CME flux and mass.

Contribution

It provides the first observational constraints on CME rates in young late-type stars using optical spectroscopy.

Findings

Detected four Hα flares in 28 stars.

Estimated an upper limit of <4 CMEs per day per star.

Concluded CME detection depends more on flux/mass than spectral resolution.

Abstract

We present a search for stellar activity (flares and mass ejections) in a sample of 28 stars in the young open cluster Blanco-1. We use optical spectra obtained with ESO's VIMOS multi-object spectrograph installed on the VLT. From the total observing time of $\sim$ 5 hours, we find four H$\alpha$ flares but no distinct indication of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) on the investigated dK-dM stars. Two flares show "dips" in their light-curves right before their impulsive phases which are similar to previous discoveries in photometric light-curves of active dMe stars. We estimate an upper limit of $<$4 CMEs per day per star and discuss this result with respect to a semi- empirical estimation of the CME rate of main-sequence stars. We find that we should have detected at least one CME per star with a mass of 1-15$\times10^{16}$ g depending on the star's X-ray luminosity, but the estimated H$\alpha$ fluxes associated with these masses are below the detection limit of our observations. We conclude that the parameter which mainly influences the detection of stellar CMEs using the method of Doppler-shifted emission caused by moving plasma is not the spectral resolution or velocity but the flux or mass of the CME.