Abstract
ABSTRACT Variability observed in photometric light curves of late-type stars (on time-scales longer than a day) is a dominant noise source in exoplanet surveys and results predominantly from surface manifestations of stellar magnetic activity, namely faculae and spots. The implementation of faculae in light-curve models is an open problem, with scaling typically based on spectra equivalent to hot stellar atmospheres or assuming a solar-derived facular contrast. We modelled rotational (single period) light curves of active G2, K0, M0, and M2 stars, with Sun-like surface distributions and realistic limb-dependent contrasts for faculae and spots. The sensitivity of light-curve variability to changes in model parameters such as stellar inclination, feature area coverage, spot temperature, facular region magnetic flux density, and active band latitudes is explored. For our light-curve modelling approach we used actress, a geometrically accurate model for stellar variability. actress generates two-sphere maps representing stellar surfaces and populates them with user-prescribed spot and facular region distributions. From this, light curves can be calculated at any inclination. Quiet star limb darkening and limb-dependent facular contrasts were derived from MURaM 3D magnetoconvection simulations using ATLAS9. 1D stellar atmosphere models were used for the spot contrasts. We applied actress in Monte Carlo simulations, calculating light-curve variability amplitudes in the Kepler band. We found that, for a given spectral type and stellar inclination, spot temperature and spot area coverage have the largest effect on variability of all simulation parameters. For a spot coverage of $1{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$, the typical variability of a solar-type star is around 2 parts per thousand. The presence of faculae clearly affects the mean brightness and light-curve shape, but has relatively little influence on the variability.
Highlights
Over its 9.5 year operation, the NASA Kepler satellite (Borucki et al 2010) collected high precision photometry on ∼ 5 × 105 stars, resulting in the confirmed detection of > 2500 exoplanets
Quiet star limb darkening and limb-dependent facular contrasts were derived from MURaM 3D magnetoconvection simulations using ATLAS9. 1D stellar atmosphere models were used for the spot contrasts
For a given spectral type and stellar inclination, spot temperature and spot area coverage have the largest effect on variability of all simulation parameters
Summary
Over its 9.5 year operation, the NASA Kepler satellite (Borucki et al 2010) collected high precision photometry on ∼ 5 × 105 stars, resulting in the confirmed detection of > 2500 exoplanets. The high-precision photometry collected has provided information on stellar photometric variability (Basri et al 2013), which will continue to be an important consideration when analysing data from Kepler successors such as TESS, CHEOPS, PLATO and ARIEL. Lightcurves of late-type stars show a quasi-periodic behaviour on timescales relevant for planetary transits (hours to days). This variability is mainly caused by the presence of photospheric surface fea-
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