L. J. Garcia, Benjamin V. Rackham, Vatsal Panwar
The study of exoplanets predominantly relies on measurements of host stars' observables, such as flux and spectral time series.However, stellar activity, including spots and faculae, has been increasingly recognized as a significant source of noise in signal analysis.For instance, photospheric active regions can mimic or hide exoplanetary signals (Rackham et al., 2023).These active regions also complicate exoplanet detection, whether through transit observations (Garcia et al., 2024) or radial velocity measurements (Collier Cameron et al., 2021).Addressing these challenges requires modeling the stellar surface and its temporal evolution.Although various methods exist for representing stellar surfaces, such as Luger et al. ( 2019), accurate inference of their properties necessitates forward models that are computationally efficient and compatible with widely used inference tools.Furthermore, the growing volume and resolution of datasets, combined with advancements in instrumentation, emphasize the need for scalable and high-performance models.