157 research outputs found
Variable stars in the VVV globular clusters
Indexación: Scopus.The VVV survey observed some of the most crowded and most obscured regions in the inner Milky Way during the last years. A significant sample of the less known globular clusters in our galaxy lie there. Combining the high-resolution, wide-field, near infrared capabilities of the survey camera, the use of 5 different filters, and multi-epoch observations, we are able to overcome many of the previous challenges that prevented a proper study of these objects. Particularly, the identification of the RR Lyrae stars in these globular clusters is proving to be a fundamental tool to establish accurately their distances and reddenings, and to infer information about the Oosterhoff dichotomy that Galactic globular clusters seem to follow. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2017.https://www.epj-conferences.org/articles/epjconf/pdf/2017/21/epjconf_puls2017_01022.pd
New RR Lyrae variables in binary systems
Despite their importance, very few RR Lyrae (RRL) stars have been known to
reside in binary systems. We report on a search for binary RRL in the OGLE-III
Galactic bulge data. Our approach consists in the search for evidence of the
light-travel time effect in so-called observed minus calculated ()
diagrams. Analysis of 1952 well-observed fundamental-mode RRL in the OGLE-III
data revealed an initial sample of 29 candidates. We used the recently released
OGLE-IV data to extend the baselines up to 17 years, leading to a final sample
of 12 firm binary candidates. We provide diagrams and binary parameters
for this final sample, and also discuss the properties of 8 additional
candidate binaries whose parameters cannot be firmly determined at present. We
also estimate that per cent of the RRL reside in binary systems.Comment: MNRAS Letters, in pres
Bulge RR Lyrae stars in the VVV tile
The VISTA Variables in the V\'ia L\'actea (VVV) Survey is one of the six ESO
public surveys currently ongoing at the VISTA telescope on Cerro Paranal,
Chile. VVV uses near-IR () filters that at present provide
photometry to a depth of mag in up to 36 epochs spanning
over four years, and aim at discovering more than 10 variable sources as
well as trace the structure of the Galactic bulge and part of the southern
disk. A variability search was performed to find RR Lyrae variable stars. The
low stellar density of the VVV tile , which is centered at
() (), makes it suitable to search for
variable stars. Previous studies have identified some RR Lyrae stars using
optical bands that served to test our search procedure. The main goal is to
measure the reddening, interstellar extinction, and distances of the RR Lyrae
stars and to study their distribution on the Milky Way bulge. A total of 1.5 sq
deg were analyzed, and we found 39 RR Lyrae stars, 27 of which belong to the
ab-type and 12 to the c-type. Our analysis recovers all the previously
identified RR Lyrae variables in the field and discovers 29 new RR Lyrae stars.
The reddening and extinction toward all the RRab stars in this tile were
derived, and distance estimations were obtained through the period--luminosity
relation. Despite the limited amount of RR Lyrae stars studied, our results are
consistent with a spheroidal or central distribution around and
kpc. for either the Cardelli or Nishiyama extinction law.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
The WFCAM Multi-wavelength Variable Star Catalog
Stellar variability in the near-infrared (NIR) remains largely unexplored.
The exploitation of public science archives with data-mining methods offers a
perspective for the time-domain exploration of the NIR sky. We perform a
comprehensive search for stellar variability using the optical-NIR multi-band
photometric data in the public Calibration Database of the WFCAM Science
Archive (WSA), with the aim of contributing to the general census of variable
stars, and to extend the current scarce inventory of accurate NIR light curves
for a number of variable star classes. We introduce new variability indices
designed for multi-band data with correlated sampling, and apply them for
pre-selecting variable star candidates, i.e., light curves that are dominated
by correlated variations, from noise-dominated ones. Pre-selection criteria are
established by robust numerical tests for evaluating the response of
variability indices to colored noise characteristic to the data. We find 275
periodic variable stars and an additional 44 objects with suspected variability
with uncertain periods or apparently aperiodic variation. Only 44 of these
objects had been previously known, including 11 RR~Lyrae stars in the outskirts
of the globular cluster M3 (NGC~5272). We provide a preliminary classification
of the new variable stars that have well-measured light curves, but the
variability types of a large number of objects remain ambiguous. We classify
most of the new variables as contact binary stars, but we also find several
pulsating stars, among which 34 are probably new field RR~Lyrae and 3 are
likely Cepheids. We also identify 32 highly reddened variable objects close to
previously known dark nebulae, suggesting that these are embedded young stellar
objects. We publish our results and all light-curve data as the WFCAM Variable
Star Catalog.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figure
The VVV Survey reveals classical Cepheids tracing a young and thin stellar disk across the Galaxy's bulge
Solid insight into the physics of the inner Milky Way is key to understanding
our Galaxy's evolution, but extreme dust obscuration has historically hindered
efforts to map the area along the Galactic mid-plane. New comprehensive
near-infrared time-series photometry from the VVV Survey has revealed 35
classical Cepheids, tracing a previously unobserved component of the inner
Galaxy, namely a ubiquitous inner thin disk of young stars along the Galactic
mid-plane, traversing across the bulge. The discovered period (age) spread of
these classical Cepheids implies a continuous supply of newly formed stars in
the central region of the Galaxy over the last 100 million years.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Near-IR finding charts of the Cepheids are available at the following URL:
http://www.astro.puc.cl/~idekany/pub/inner_disk_ceph_fc.pn
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