Calibration of Differential Light Curves for Physical Analysis of Starspots

TL;DR

This paper examines methods to calibrate differential light curves for starspot analysis, highlighting challenges, potential solutions, and the influence of faculae, using Kepler data and solar/star models.

Contribution

It introduces calibration methodologies for differential light curves, discusses the impact of surface differential rotation and faculae, and re-evaluates correlations in Kepler data for starspot analysis.

Findings

Calibration methods vary in success, with some effective in many cases.

Surface differential rotation and spot evolution complicate spot coverage recovery.

Faculae effects are significant but do not require absolute photometry for calibration.

Abstract

This paper presents detailed consideration of methodologies to calibrate differential light curves for accurate physical starspot modeling. We use the Sun and starspot models as a testbed to highlight some factors in this calibration that that have not yet been treated with care. One unambiguously successful procedure for converting a differential light curve into a light deficit curve appears difficult to implement, but methodologies are presented that work in many cases. The years-long time coverage of Kepler provides a strong advantage, but unresolved issues concerning the competing and sometimes similar effects of surface differential rotation versus spot number and size evolution can prevent the confident recovery of correct spot covering fractions in certain cases. We also consider whether faculae are detected by Kepler and/or must be accounted for. We conclude their effects are such that absolute photometry is not required for spot deficit calibrations. To elucidate their signature we re-examine correlations between absolute brightness, differential variability, and apparent spot coverage for hundreds of Kepler stars with absolute calibrations from Montet et al. (2017). The results are similar to theirs, but we draw somewhat different conclusions. Most of the stars in this active solar-type sample are spot-dominated as expected. Partly because of a dearth of longer period stars, the evidence for facular dominance in this sample is both sparse and relatively weak. The facular population exhibits a puzzling lack of dependence on rotation period, which raises questions about the apparent detection of a "facular" signal at short periods.