Detection of a giant white-light flare on an L2.5 dwarf with the Next Generation Transit Survey

We present the detection of a ΔV ∼ −10 flare from the ultracool L2.5 dwarf ULAS J224940.13−011236.9 with the Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS). The flare was detected in a targeted search of late-type stars in NGTS full-frame images and represents one of the largest flares ever observed from an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Letters 2019-05, Vol.485 (1), p.L136-L140
Main Authors: Jackman, James A G, Wheatley, Peter J, Bayliss, Daniel, Burleigh, Matthew R, Casewell, Sarah L, Eigmüller, Philipp, Goad, Mike R, Pollacco, Don, Raynard, Liam, Watson, Christopher A, West, Richard G
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:We present the detection of a ΔV ∼ −10 flare from the ultracool L2.5 dwarf ULAS J224940.13−011236.9 with the Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS). The flare was detected in a targeted search of late-type stars in NGTS full-frame images and represents one of the largest flares ever observed from an ultracool dwarf. This flare also extends the detection of white-light flares to stars with temperatures below 2000 K. We calculate the energy of the flare to be $3.4^{+0.9}_{-0.7}\times 10^{33}$ erg, making it an order of magnitude more energetic than the Carrington event on the Sun. Our data show how the high-cadence NGTS full-frame images can be used to probe white-light flaring behaviour in the latest spectral types.
ISSN:1745-3925
1745-3933
DOI:10.1093/mnrasl/slz039