Ekaterina Ilin, Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP) — Dec 5, 2022

Whether we strive to understand the nature of low mass stars, the history of our planet in the Solar System, or search for a second Earth, magnetic fields play an important role. Their strength, and non-linear variability on time scales from minutes to gigayears shape the environments of star-planet systems. Flares are one of the most disruptive magnetic phenomena — enormous explosions in the atmospheres of active stars.

The surge of space based observatories in the past years incidentally caused stellar flare detection to become abundantly accessible, and their detailed characterization feasible. With that came the realization that flares could be used as a diagnostic: They can be viewed as a flashlight onto the dynamic magnetic structures of stars and star-planets systems.

In this talk, I will map out the potential of flares as probes of the magnetic evolution of stars, their small scale magnetic fields, their mass loss, and the space weather they create for the planets in their orbits. In the end, we will see new ways in which flares can illuminate the interplay between the stellar dynamo, magnetic activity, and angular momentum loss that underlies these phenomena.