A Machine-Learning Approach for Identifying CME-Associated Stellar Flares in TESS Observations

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Autori principali: Shi, Yu, Lu, Hong-Peng, Zhang, Li-Yun, Su, Tian-Hao, Tan, Chao
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Shi, Yu
Lu, Hong-Peng
Zhang, Li-Yun
Su, Tian-Hao
Tan, Chao
author_facet Shi, Yu
Lu, Hong-Peng
Zhang, Li-Yun
Su, Tian-Hao
Tan, Chao
contents Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are major drivers of stellar space weather and can strongly influence the habitability of exoplanets. However, compared to the frequent occurrence of white-light flares, confirmed stellar CMEs remain extremely rare. Whether such flares are commonly accompanied by CMEs is a key question for solar-stellar comparative studies. Using Sun-as-a-star soft X-ray flare light curves observed by the GOES XRS 1--8~Å channel, we compiled a sample of 1,766 M-class and larger solar flares and extracted features with both deep convolutional neural networks and manual methods. Five machine-learning classifiers were trained to distinguish eruptive from confined flares, with the random forest model achieving the best performance (true skill statistic; TSS = 0.31). This TSS value indicates that the model possesses a moderate ability to discriminate between eruptive and confined flares. Normalized white-light and GOES XRS flare light curves show broadly consistent temporal evolution, reflecting their shared energy-release history and supporting a probabilistic transfer of the model to white-light flare data. We applied the best-performing RF model to 41,405 TESS-detected flares on FGKM-type main-sequence stars, predicting that approximately 47% of events show CME-like morphological characteristics, with the model-implied intrinsic association fraction lying in the range 35%--60%. Intriguingly, the CME occurrence rate decreases with increasing flare energy, indicating that the most energetic flares may be more strongly confined by overlying magnetic fields. These results provide new insight into flare-CME connections in diverse stellar environments and have important implications for assessing the impact of stellar eruptive activity on exoplanetary atmospheres.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_15484
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Machine-Learning Approach for Identifying CME-Associated Stellar Flares in TESS Observations
Shi, Yu
Lu, Hong-Peng
Zhang, Li-Yun
Su, Tian-Hao
Tan, Chao
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are major drivers of stellar space weather and can strongly influence the habitability of exoplanets. However, compared to the frequent occurrence of white-light flares, confirmed stellar CMEs remain extremely rare. Whether such flares are commonly accompanied by CMEs is a key question for solar-stellar comparative studies. Using Sun-as-a-star soft X-ray flare light curves observed by the GOES XRS 1--8~Å channel, we compiled a sample of 1,766 M-class and larger solar flares and extracted features with both deep convolutional neural networks and manual methods. Five machine-learning classifiers were trained to distinguish eruptive from confined flares, with the random forest model achieving the best performance (true skill statistic; TSS = 0.31). This TSS value indicates that the model possesses a moderate ability to discriminate between eruptive and confined flares. Normalized white-light and GOES XRS flare light curves show broadly consistent temporal evolution, reflecting their shared energy-release history and supporting a probabilistic transfer of the model to white-light flare data. We applied the best-performing RF model to 41,405 TESS-detected flares on FGKM-type main-sequence stars, predicting that approximately 47% of events show CME-like morphological characteristics, with the model-implied intrinsic association fraction lying in the range 35%--60%. Intriguingly, the CME occurrence rate decreases with increasing flare energy, indicating that the most energetic flares may be more strongly confined by overlying magnetic fields. These results provide new insight into flare-CME connections in diverse stellar environments and have important implications for assessing the impact of stellar eruptive activity on exoplanetary atmospheres.
title A Machine-Learning Approach for Identifying CME-Associated Stellar Flares in TESS Observations
topic Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.15484