Flares in A-type stars?

Stellar flares are known to originate from magnetic reconnection in the atmospheres of late-type stars or through radiatively driven wind instabilities in early-type stars. Situated right between these two groups, the A-type stars are not expected to support either of the two mechanisms. However, recent studies report flare features in the Kepler light curves of 32 A-type stars, contradicting theory. We investigate the stars reported in literature, setting strong constraints on the detection criteria. Although significantly fewer, we conclude that flare-like features are present. To determine the origin we obtained high-resolution spectra from the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) for the ten brightest, flaring A-type stars for 3-4 epochs. Here we present the preliminary results of these spectroscopic observations, with respect to spectral classification and binarity.