Issue |
A&A
Volume 481, Number 3, April III 2008
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 799 - 805 | |
Section | Stellar atmospheres | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20079017 | |
Published online | 07 February 2008 |
A coronal explosion on the flare star CN Leonis
1
Hamburger Sternwarte, Gojenbergsweg 112, 21029 Hamburg, Germany e-mail: jschmitt@hs.uni-hamburg.de
2
Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche e Astronomiche, Università di Palermo, Piazza del Parlamento 1, 90134 Palermo, Italy
3
Inst. f. Astrophysik Universität Göttingen, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
Received:
7
November
2007
Accepted:
24
January
2008
We present simultaneous high-temporal and high-spectral resolution observations of the nearby flare star CN Leo
at optical and soft X-ray wavelengths. During our observing campaign a major flare occurred, raising the star's
instantaneous energy output by almost three orders of magnitude. The flare shows the often observed impulsive behavior,
with a rapid rise and slow decay in the optical and a broad soft X-ray maximum about 200 seconds after the optical flare peak.
In addition to this usually encountered flare phenomenology we find, however, an extremely short ( s) soft X-ray peak, which is very likely of thermal, rather than nonthermal nature and coincides temporally with the optical flare peak. While at hard X-ray energies nonthermal bursts are routinely observed on the Sun at flare onset, thermal soft X-ray bursts on time scales of seconds have never been observed in a solar, nor stellar context. Time-dependent, one-dimensional hydrodynamic modeling of this event
requires an extremely short energy deposition time scale
of a few seconds to reconcile theory with observations, thus suggesting that we are witnessing the results of a coronal explosion on CN Leo. Thus
the flare on CN Leo provides the opportunity to observationally study the physics of the long-sought “micro-flares” thought to be responsible for coronal heating.
Key words: X-rays: stars / stars: individual: CN Leo / stars: flares / stars: coronae / stars: activity
© ESO, 2008
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