TESS Light Curve Analysis: A Case Study of Stellar Rotation in TIC 445493624
Abstract
Stellar rotation is a fundamental parameter governing a star's magnetic activity and evolution. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) provides high-precision photometric data ideal for measuring rotation periods via brightness modulations from starspots. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the star TIC 445493624 using 2-minute cadence data from TESS Sector 58. We process the light curve using a custom pipeline to perform outlier removal, binning, and Savitzky-Golay detrending to isolate the stellar variability. A Lomb-Scargle periodogram of the cleaned data reveals a single, dominant periodic signal at 3.638 days with a power of 0.43, corresponding to a negligible false-alarm probability. The phase-folded light curve at this period is highly coherent and exhibits a stable, non-sinusoidal morphology indicative of large-scale magnetic features or spot groups.