Superflares on Giant Stars

Abstract

The Kepler mission has identified huge flares on various stars, including some solar-type stars. These events are substantially more energetic than solar flares, and are referred to as superflares. Even a low probability of such a superflare occurring on the Sun would be a menace to modern society. A flare comparable in energy to that of superflares was observed on September 24 and 25, 1989 on the binary HK Lac. Unlike the Kepler stars, observations of differential rotation are available for HK Lac. This differential rotation appears to be anti-solar. In the case of anti-solar differential rotation, dynamo models can producemagnetic-activity waves with dipolare symmetry, as well as quasi-stationary magnetic configurations with quadrupolar symmetry. The magnetic energy of such stationary configurations is usually about two orders of magnitude higher than the energy associated with activity waves. We believe that this mechanism could provide sufficient energy to produce superflares on late-type stars. Some simple models in support of this idea are presented.