Analyzing Ultraviolet and Optical Behavior of Proxima Centauri Flares

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Citations

Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/pv63g183t

Abstract

When investigating the effect of stellar activity on planetary habitability it is important to understand the flare behavior at ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths, as this higher energy light can be damaging to atmospheres. Since UV radiation does not make it to the surface of Earth, data collection at this wavelength must be done with space telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) that have limited availability. To better understand the multi-wavelength behavior of M-Dwarf stars, we simultaneously collected data from a variety of telescopes observing at different wavelengths. A side-by-side comparison of data from Hubble (UV) and TESS (optical) reveals that flare events in the optical tend to be lower energy and lag behind the same event observed in the UV. Optical wavelengths are often used to compensate for this limited UV data; however, these new results suggest that optical is not a perfect tracer for UV behavior and an alternative approach to approximation may be needed.

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