Sinusoidal Stellar Variability Catalog of Stars Observed During the TESS Primary Mission

The shape and periodic nature of stellar light curves can uncover important information about a star’s intrinsic properties, in addition to revealing possible companions. TESS has obtained high-precision space-based time-series photometry of nearly the entire sky, allowing for a large-scale study of stellar variability that is not sensitive to the diurnal limitation of ground-based surveys. We search for periodicity in ~230,000 stars that were observed at 2-minute cadence during the TESS primary mission and identify ~55,000 stars with significant sinusoidal variability on timescales of 0.01-13 days that could be attributed to rotational modulations, stellar pulsations, or binarity. We will discuss the population statistics for stars in our sinusoidal stellar variability catalog and make comparisons with those at similar timescales (<13 days) detected by Kepler. Our stellar variability catalog will be a valuable resource to the stellar astrophysics and exoplanet communities, in that it will aid 1) studying the characteristics of periodic variable stars; 2) understanding interactions between host star variability and planetary atmospheres; and 3) identifying false positives caused by stellar variability for future planet candidates.