Llamaradas Estelares: Modeling the Morphology of White-Light Flares

Abstract

Stellar variability is a limiting factor for planet detection and characterization, particularly around active M-type stars. Here we revisit one of the most active stars from the Kepler mission, the M4 star GJ 1243, and use a sample of 414 flare events from 11 months of 1-minute cadence light curves to study the empirical morphology of white-light stellar flares. We use a Gaussian process detrending technique to account for the underlying starspots. We present an improved analytic, continuous flare template that is generated by stacking the flares onto a scaled time and amplitude and uses a Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis to fit the model. Our model is defined using classical flare events, but can also be used to model complex, multi-peaked flare events. We demonstrate the utility of our model using TESS data at the 10-minute, 2-minute and 20-second cadence modes. Our new flare model code is made publicly available on GitHub.