Corrected and aperture TESS flux give dip change ranks of 0.27 and 1.00 for a sector 78 flare in LP 12-502

A sector 78 flare in LP 12-502 gives different dip change ranks in two TESS flux products. The event peaks at BTJD 3436.80991. Its rank among controls at the same rotation phase is 3/11 = 0.273 in corrected flux and 11/11 = 1.000 in aperture flux. This difference appears in a planned check of a flare and dip change test. It remains when both products use the same flare mask. We use 12 public 120-second light curves. The main sample has five sectors after the seven sectors in a 2024 study. We select the largest flare that passes fixed amplitude, partial equivalent duration, inspection, and coverage rules in each sector. Only sectors 78 and 79 supply events. We compare two-rotation median profiles before and after each flare, with a one-rotation guard. We remove two Fourier harmonics and measure the remaining change. The corrected-flux scores are 1.260 and 1.202 parts per thousand. Both are below their control medians. The mean rank is 0.215. An exact test gives an upper-tail probability of 551/608 = 0.90625 under independent uniform event-cycle assignments. In aperture flux the sector 79 rank is 0.000, and the two-event test also gives no evidence for an excess. Artificial dip removals show strong limits from phase and background changes. These data cannot identify the source of the flux-product difference or exclude a wider flare–dip relation. The package contains original FITS files, archive provenance, candidate decisions, code, figures, tables, and reproduction instructions.

LP 12-502 · TIC 402980664 · TESS · complex periodic variables · stellar flares · stellar rotation · periodic dips · conditional randomization · time series