Serendipitous Science from the K2 Mission

TL;DR

This paper presents a new photometry pipeline for the K2 mission that improves data quality and enables asteroseismic studies of both primary and secondary targets, expanding the scientific potential of the mission.

Contribution

We developed a novel automated pipeline for K2 data that enhances photometric precision and extracts light curves for secondary targets, facilitating diverse scientific analyses.

Findings

Achieved high-precision photometry with the pipeline.

Successfully extracted light curves for secondary targets.

Demonstrated utility with asteroseismic results.

Abstract

The K2 mission is a repurposed use of the Kepler spacecraft to perform high-precision photometry of selected fields in the ecliptic. We have developed an aperture photometry pipeline for K2 data which performs dynamic automated aperture mask selection, background estimation and subtraction, and positional decorrelation to minimize the effects of spacecraft pointing jitter. We also identify secondary targets in the K2 "postage stamps" and produce light curves for those targets as well. Pipeline results will be made available to the community. Here we describe our pipeline and the photometric precision we are capable of achieving with K2, and illustrate its utility with asteroseismic results from the serendipitous secondary targets.