2022A&A...663A.119F

The M dwarf Proxima Centauri, the Sun's closest stellar neighbour, is known to be magnetically active and it hosts a likely Earth-like planet in its habitable zone. High-energy radiation from the host star can significantly alter planetary atmospheres in close orbits. Frequent flaring may drive radiation-induced effects such as rapid atmospheric escape and photochemical changes. Therefore, understanding the characteristics of stellar radiation by understanding the properties of the emitting plasma is of paramount importance for a proper assessment of the conditions on Proxima Centauri b and exoplanets around M dwarfs in general. This work determines the temperature structure of the coronal and transition region plasma of Proxima Centauri from simultaneous X-ray and far-ultraviolet (FUV) observations. The differential emission measure distribution (DEM) was constructed for flaring and quiescent periods by analysing optically thin X-ray and FUV emission lines. Four X-ray observations of Proxima Centauri were conducted by the LETGS instrument on board of the Chandra X-ray Observatory and four FUV observations were carried out using the STIS spectrograph on board the Hubble Space Telescope. From the X-ray light curves, we determined a variation of the quiescent count rate by a factor of two within 20% of the stellar rotation period. To obtain the DEM, 18 optically thin emission lines were analysed (12 X-ray and six FUV). The flare fluxes differ from the quiescence fluxes by factors of 4-20 (FUV) and 1-30 (X-ray). The temperature structure of the stellar corona and transition region was determined for both the quiescence and flaring state by fitting the DEM(T) with Chebyshev polynomials for a temperature range log T = 4.25-8. Compared to quiescence, the emission measure increases during flares for temperatures below 0.3 MK (FUV dominated region) and beyond 3.6 MK (X-ray dominated region). The reconstructed DEM shape provides acceptable line flux predictions compared to the measured values. Using the DEM we provide synthetic spectra at 1-1700 Å, which may be considered as representative for the high-energy irradiation of Proxima Cen b during quiescent and flare periods. In future work these values can be used for planet atmosphere calculations which will ultimately provide information about how habitable Proxima Centauri b is.