  Variability observed in photometric lightcurves of late-type stars (on
timescales longer than a day) is a dominant noise source in exoplanet surveys
and results predominantly from surface manifestations of stellar magnetic
activity, namely faculae and spots. The implementation of faculae in lightcurve
models is an open problem, with scaling typically based on spectra equivalent
to hot stellar atmospheres or assuming a solar-derived facular contrast. We
modelled rotational (single period) lightcurves of active G2, K0, M0 and M2
stars, with Sun-like surface distributions and realistic limb-dependent
contrasts for faculae and spots. The sensitivity of lightcurve variability to
changes in model parameters such as stellar inclination, feature area coverage,
spot temperature, facular region magnetic flux density and active band
latitudes is explored. For our lightcurve modelling approach we used actress, a
geometrically accurate model for stellar variability. actress generates
2-sphere maps representing stellar surfaces and populates them with
user-prescribed spot and facular region distributions. From this, lightcurves
can be calculated at any inclination. Quiet star limb darkening and
limb-dependent facular contrasts were derived from MURaM 3D magnetoconvection
simulations using ATLAS9. 1D stellar atmosphere models were used for the spot
contrasts. We applied actress in Monte-Carlo simulations, calculating
lightcurve variability amplitudes in the Kepler band. We found that, for a
given spectral type and stellar inclination, spot temperature and spot area
coverage have the largest effect on variability of all simulation parameters.
For a spot coverage of 1%, the typical variability of a solar-type star is
around 2 parts-per-thousand. The presence of faculae clearly affects the mean
brightness and lightcurve shape, but has relatively little influence on the
variability.
