HADES RV Programme with HARPS-N at TNG. X. The non-saturated regime of the stellar activity-rotation relationship for M dwarfs
Rebolo, R.; Ribas, I.; Scandariato, G.; Pagano, I.; Rainer, M.; Sozzetti, A.; Lanza, A. F.; Maldonado, J.; Piotto, G.; Micela, G.; González Hernández, J. I.; Suárez Mascareño, A.; Toledo-Padrón, B.; Damasso, M.; Affer, L.; Benatti, S.; Desidera, S.; Pinamonti, M.; Cosentino, R.; Covino, E.; Bignamini, A.; Maggio, A.; Perger, M.; González-Álvarez, E.; Martínez-Fiorenzano, A.
Italy, Spain, Switzerland
Abstract
Aims: We extend the relationship between X-ray luminosity (Lx) and rotation period (Prot) found for main-sequence FGK stars, and test whether it also holds for early M dwarfs, especially in the non-saturated regime (Lx ∝ Prot-2) which corresponds to slow rotators.
Methods: We use the luminosity coronal activity indicator (Lx) of a sample of 78 early M dwarfs with masses in the range from 0.3 to 0.75 M⊙ from the HArps-N red Dwarf Exoplanet Survey (HADES) radial velocity (RV) programme collected from ROSAT and XMM-Newton. The determination of the rotation periods (Prot) was done by analysing time series of high-resolution spectroscopy of the Ca II H & K and Hα activity indicators. Our sample principally covers the slow rotation regime with rotation periods from 15 to 60 days.
Results: Our work extends to the low mass regime the observed trend for more massive stars showing a continuous shift of the Lx/Lbol versus Prot power law towards longer rotation period values, and includes a more accurate way to determine the value of the rotation period at which the saturation occurs (Psat) for M dwarf stars.
Conclusions: We conclude that the relations between coronal activity and stellar rotation for FGK stars also hold for early M dwarfs in the non-saturated regime, indicating that the rotation period is sufficient to determine the ratio Lx/Lbol.