Amplifying variability of solar-like stars by active longitudes and nesting

Many solar-type stars with near-solar rotation periods exhibit much stronger variability than the Sun (Reinhold et al. 2020). Some of these stars even show very regular, sine-like light curves. Motivated by solar activity complexes, we developed a numerical model to quantify the effect of active-region (AR) nesting and active longitudes on stellar brightness variations in the rotational time scale. Modelling ARs with facular and spot components, we simulated light curves covering four years and using the Kepler passband. We found that the combined effect of the degree of nesting and the activity level, both being somewhat higher than on the Sun, can explain the whole range of observed light-curve amplitudes of solar-like stars. While nesting at random longitudes can explain variability amplitudes and light-curve morphology in many cases, active-longitude-type nesting reproduces sine-like light curves and the highest amplitude variability.