Space Weather & Heliophysics

Summary Of The First Year Of The Space Weather Around Young Suns Program: 900 Hours Of Low-frequency Radio And Optical Data Dedicated To Young, Solar-type Stars

By Keith Cowing
Status Report
astro-ph.SR
June 14, 2026
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Summary Of The First Year Of The Space Weather Around Young Suns Program: 900 Hours Of Low-frequency Radio And Optical Data Dedicated To Young, Solar-type Stars
3C 305’s dynamic spectrum (top right), per-integration (black points) and time-averaged (colored points) spectra (top left), and frequency-averaged light curve (bottom plot) derived from the cross-correlated data. The periodically flagged data are due to the LADWP beacon pulses. The flux density has been corrected for the elevation of the source throughout the observation; the apparent increase in the flux density at the end of the observation may be due to a poor correction at low elevations (≈ 30◦). The stability in the extracted flux density is one indicator that the ionosphere was relatively well-behaved during this observation. — astro-ph.SR

The Space Weather Around Young Suns (SWAYS) program was introduced in Davis2025 as a multi-wavelength monitoring program for studying the activity and particle environments of nearby, young, solar-type stars.

The SWAYS program currently includes the Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array (OVRO-LWA) operating between 13-87MHz to search for stellar equivalents of solar type~II and III bursts, which are associated with bulk plasma motion in the corona and interplanetary medium.

These observations are accompanied by simultaneous photometric data from the high-precision, optical instrument Flarescope to identify associated flare events. These two instruments have collectively acquired nearly 900hr of data with ≈70% overlap between November 2023–June 2024, dedicated to six stars.

Here, we present the results of this first season of the SWAYS observing campaign, which include a superflare from the star EK~Draconis with no accompanying low-frequency particle-flux signal. The novelty of the coordination at these specific parts of the spectrum allow us to uniquely evaluate the conditions that may have inhibited a radio detection.

We find that the exceptionally hot, dense coronae of incredibly active stars may not be conducive to the development of the instabilities required for type~II and III bursts, or else inspire new expectations for when we should expect to observe a signal relative to the time of the flare. This may represent the plasma-density complement to the magnetospheric limitations to observing space-weather signatures at low frequencies.

Ivey Davis, Gregg Hallinan, Nikita Kosogorov, Marin M. Anderson, John Baker, Judd D. Bowman, Rick Burruss, Ruby Byrne, Morgan Catha, Bin Chen, Xingyao Chen, Sherry Chhabra, Curt Corcoran, Larry D’Addario, Jayce Dowell, Katherine Elder, Dale Gary, Charlie Harnach, Carolyn Heffner, Greg Hellbourg, Jack Hickish, Rick Hobbs, David Hodge, Mark Hodges, Yuping Huang, Andrea Isella, Daniel C. Jacobs, Ghislain Kemby, John T. Klinefelter, Matthew Kolopanis, James Lamb, Casey Law, Nivedita Mahesh, Surajit Mondal, Navtej Saini, Brian O’Donnell, Kathryn Plant, Corey Posner, Travis Powell, Vinand Prayag, Andres Rizo, Andrew Romero-Wolf, Jun Shi, Greg Taylor, Jordan Trim, Mike Virgin, Akshatha K. Vydula, Sandy Weinreb, Scott White, David Woody, Sijie Yu, Thomas Zentmeyer, Peijin Zhang, Jeffry Zolkower

Comments: 21 pages, 12 figures, 4 tables. Accepted to ApJ
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Cite as: arXiv:2606.11492 [astro-ph.SR] (or arXiv:2606.11492v1 [astro-ph.SR] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.11492
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Related DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae75ed
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Submission history
From: Ivey Davis
[v1] Tue, 9 Jun 2026 22:24:58 UTC (582 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.11492

Astrobiology,

Keith Cowing

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member 🖖🏻

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