The Stellar CME–Flare Relation: What Do Historic Observations Reveal?

Abstract

Solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and flares have a statistically well-defined relationship, with more energetic X-ray flares corresponding to faster and more massive CMEs. How this relationship extends to more magnetically active stars is a subject of open research. Here we study the most probable stellar CME candidates associated with flares captured in the literature to date, all of which were observed on magnetically active stars. We use a simple CME model to derive masses and kinetic energies from observed quantities and transform associated flare data to the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 1–8 Å band. Derived CME masses range from ∼10 15 to 10 22 g. Associated flare X-ray energies range from 10 31 to 10 37 erg. Stellar CME masses as a function of associated flare energy generally lie along or below the extrapolated mean for solar events. In contrast, CME kinetic energies lie below the analogous solar extrapolation by roughly 2 orders of magnitude, indicating approximate parity between flare X-ray and CME kinetic energies. These results suggest that the CMEs associated with very energetic flares on active stars are more limited in terms of the ejecta velocity than the ejecta mass, possibly because of the restraining influence of strong overlying magnetic fields and stellar wind drag. Lower CME kinetic energies and velocities present a more optimistic scenario for the effects of CME impacts on exoplanets in close proximity to active stellar hosts.