Evidence for a Common Magnetic Driver for Flares and Quiescent Coronae/Chromospheres

Abstract

The mean power and rate of optical flares in dMe stars are found to be correlated with their quiet coronal X-ray luminosity. The mean flare luminosity in the photometric V-band appears to scale linearly with the X-ray luminosity with a slope of 0·04. This coincidence suggests that quiet and flare activity in coronae/chromospheres may be related by one and the same flaring mechanism. We propose that 'quiet' activity is due to microflares-a low yield but high frequency continuation of flares.