IRAS Observations of Flare Stars

Abstract

The IRAS survey of the infrared sky has provided us with an excellent data bank in order to study the far infrared emission from a variety of star types. To this purpose the IRAS Point Source Catalogue was searched at the positions of the 70 known flare stars. There were 15 detections at the 60 level, among which some well-known stars like, AD Leo, YZ CMi, BY Dra, etc.. The detected flare stars were 12$μ$ sources with most of them showing weak 25$μ$ emission. Their luminosities at 25$μ$ were estimated to be in the range 0.5--2.5 {\texttimes} 1030 ergs/sec and the fraction of their energy emitted in the 12$μ$ band to their total luminosity, L(12)/L(bol), is 0.5--2.0 {\texttimes} 10−2. It is concluded that IRAS has detected the photospheres of the brighter, nearby flare stars.