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Study discovers photometric variability in M-dwarf binary, suggesting chromospheric activity.
I report the discovery of photometric variability in TIC 63038821 (Gaia DR3 6602241667490407552, 2MASS J22282840-3023251), an M3-M4 dwarf located at a distance of 203 ± 4 pc. Using 2-minute cadence photometry from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Sector 1, we applied an unsupervised autoencoder-based anomaly detection pipeline to 15,665 light curves. This analysis identifies the star as a previously unreported variable. Lomb-Scargle periodogram analysis reveals a dominant period of \( P = 14.345 ± 0.01 \, d \) with a false alarm probability of \( FAP < 1 × 10⁻³⁰⁰ \), consistent with rotational modulation by starspots. We detected four flare events exceeding 5-sigma above the quiescent level, with the strongest reaching a fractional amplitude of \( dF/F = 20.2% \). The Gaia DR3 binary probability is \( Pbin = 0.999999 \), and GALEX near-ultraviolet detection confirms chromospheric activity. We classify TIC 63038821 as a UV Ceti / BY Draconis type variable and a strong candidate for a chromospherically active M-dwarf binary system. This object has no prior entry in SIMBAD, the AAVSO Variable Star Index (VSX), the General Catalogue of Variable Stars (GCVS), or any published literature.
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Arif Dogan (2026) studied this question.
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