A Data Visualization and Manipulation Tool to Improve the Scientific Return of Kepler/K2 Short-Cadence Light Curves

Since early 2018, the Kepler/K2 project has been performing a uniform global reprocessing of K2 observations of K2 Campaigns 0 through 14. Subsequent K2 campaigns (C15-C18+) are being processed using the same reduction pipeline. One of the major benefits of the reprocessing effort is that, for the first time in the K2 Mission, short-cadence (1-min) light curves are produced in addition to the standard long-cadence (30-min) light curves. Users have been cautioned that the Kepler Mission's pipeline detrending module (PDC) has not been modified to work well on short-cadence K2 observations. Some station-keeping activities during K2 observations, such as thruster firings, are sometimes poorly corrected for most short-cadence targets. A Python data visualization and manipulation tool is presented which identifies and removes cadences associated with thruster events, which are not well detrended by the PDC algorithm, thus producing better light curves. We anticipate releasing this software on the website: http://code.nasa.gov. The enhanced scientific return of short-cadence K2 observations is demonstrated with the analysis of short-cadence PDCSAP_FLUX measurements of two targets: the exoplanet K2-99b and EPIC-206003187, an ab-type RR Lyrae star exhibiting the Blazhko effect.