Long rotation period main-sequence stars from Kepler SAP light curves

Abstract

ABSTRACT Stellar rotation plays a key role in stellar activity. The rotation period could be detected through light curve variations caused by star-spots. Kepler provides two types of light curves: one is the Pre-search Data Conditioning (PDC) light curves, and the other is the Simple Aperture Photometer (SAP) light curves. Compared with the PDC light curves, the SAP light curves keep the long-term trend, relatively suitable for searches of long-period signals. However, SAP data are inflicted by some artefacts such as quarterly rolls and instrumental errors, making it difficult to find the physical periods in the SAP light curves. We explore a systematic approach based on the light curve pre-processing, period detection, and candidate selection. We also develop a simulated light curve test to estimate our detection limits for the SAP-like LCs. After applying our method to the raw SAP light curves, we found more than 1000 main-sequence stars with periods longer than 30 d; 165 are newly discovered. Considering the potential flaw of the SAP, we also inspect the newly found objects with photometry methods, and most of our periodical signals are confirmed.