Kepler-411 Star Activity: Connection between Starspots and Superflares

Stellar magnetic activity, just like that of the Sun, manifests itself in the form of flares and spots on the surface of the star. In the solar case, the largest flares originate from large active regions. In this work, we present a study of the activity of the star Kepler-411, including spot modeling from planetary transits. Our goal was to search for a connection between the area of starspots with the energy of superflares produced by this star. Kepler-411 is a K2V-type star with an average rotation period of 10.52 days, radius of 0.79 R⊙, and a mass of 0.83 M⊙, which was observed by the Kepler satellite for about 600 days. Transit mapping allowed for the characterization of 198 starspots with estimates of their radius and temperature. Kepler-411 starspots had an average radius of (17 ± 7) × 103 km and a mean temperature of 3800 ± 700 K. Visual inspection of the light curves of Kepler-411 yields the identification of 65 superflares. The detected superflares lasted from 8 to 260 minutes and their energy varied from 1033–1035 ergs. The power-law index of the flare frequency distribution as a function of energy is (−2.04 ± 0.13) for the flare on Kepler-411. A positive correlation between the area of starspots and the energy of superflares was found when considering the averages taken every 16–35 days, with the highest correlation occurring for averages every 21 days. This timing is probably related to the lifetime of the Kepler-411 spots.