Separating states in astronomical sources using hidden Markov models: with a case study of flaring and quiescence on EV Lac

We present a new method to distinguish between different states (e.g. high and low, quiescent and flaring) in astronomical sources with count data. The method models the underlying physical process as latent variables following a continuous-space Markov chain that determines the expected Poisson counts in observed light curves in multiple passbands. For the underlying state process, we consider several autoregressive processes, yielding continuous-space hidden Markov models of varying complexity. Under these models, we can infer the state that the object is in at any given time. The continuous state predictions from these models are then dichotomized with the help of a finite mixture model to produce state classifications. We apply these techniques to X-ray data from the active dMe flare star EV Lac, splitting the data into quiescent and flaring states. We find that a first-order vector autoregressive process efficiently separates flaring from quiescence: flaring occurs over 30 per cent-40 per cent of the observation durations, a well-defined persistent quiescent state can be identified, and the flaring state is characterized by higher plasma temperatures and emission measures.