Extensive serendipitous X-ray coverage of a flare star with ROSAT

We report the serendipitous discovery of a flare star observed with the ROSAT X-ray observatory. From optical spectra, which show strong and variable emission lines of the hydrogen Balmer series and neutral helium, we classify this object as a M3.0Ve star, and estimate a distance of 52 pc from published photometry. Owing to the close proximity of the star (13.6 arcmin) to the calibration source and RS CVn binary AR Lacertae, long-term X-ray coverage is available in the ROSAT archive (∼50 h spanning 6.5 yr). Two large flare events occurred early in the mission (1990 June–July), and the end of a third flare was detected in 1996 June. One flare, observed with the Position Sensitive Proportional Counter (PSPC), had a peak luminosity L _X=1.1×10³⁰ erg s⁻¹, an e-folding rise time of 2.2 h and a decay time of 7 h. This decay time is one of the longest detected on a dMe star, providing evidence for the possibility of additional heating during the decay phase. A large High Resolution Imager (HRI) flare (peak L _X=2.9×10³⁰ erg s⁻¹) is also studied. The 'background' X-ray emission is also variable – evidence for low-level flaring or microflaring. We find that 59 per cent of the HRI counts and 68 per cent of the PSPC counts are caused by flares. At least 41 per cent of the HRI exposure time and 47 per cent of the PSPC are affected by detectable flare enhancement.