A recurrent 70-100 minute quasi-periodic pulsation in the intermediate-aged mid-M dwarf GJ 3512

TL;DR

This paper reports the first detection of a sustained quasi-periodic pulsation in a late-M dwarf star, GJ 3512, observed over multiple years with TESS, suggesting a possible coronal origin unlike typical flare-confined QPPs.

Contribution

It provides the first evidence of a long-lasting, recurrent QPP in a late-type star, expanding understanding of stellar variability mechanisms beyond flares.

Findings

Detected a 70-100 minute QPP in GJ 3512 across multiple TESS sectors.

QPP persisted for weeks and spanned nearly three years, with no significant damping.

The pulsation likely has a coronal origin, not related to stellar pulsations.

Abstract

We report the discovery of a {recurrent} quasi-periodic pulsation (QPP) in the late-M dwarf GJ 3512 (M5.5V) using multiple TESS datasets. A strong signal with a period of 70-100 minutes was detected in wavelet analyses of the two-minute cadence light curve from Sector 20. This signal was detected also in observations from Sectors 47 and 60. The QPP persisted for weeks in sector 20 and spanned nearly three years of TESS coverage. There was no significant damping between major flares. This behavior contrasts with that of previously reported stellar QPPs, which are confined to individual flares and decay on timescales of minutes to hours. The oscillation amplitude is at the milli-magnitude level. A pulsation origin is discarded since theoretical instability strips for 100-minute pulsations are restricted to pre-main sequence stars, while GJ 3512 is an intermediate age (2-8 Gyr) main-sequence dwarf. The persistence across independent TESS sectors discards an instrumental artifact origin and points to a likely coronal origin instead, such as oscillatory reconnection or thermal non-equilibrium cycles in large active regions. This represents the first detection of a likely sustained QPP with these characteristics in a late-type star, highlighting the need for further investigation into physical mechanisms behind such variability.