Exploring the Variable Sky with LINEAR. I. Photometric Recalibration with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We describe photometric recalibration of data obtained by the asteroid survey LINEAR. Although LINEAR was designed for astrometric discovery of moving objects, the data set described here contains over 5 billion photometric measurements for about 25 million objects, mostly stars. We use Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data from the overlapping ~10,000 deg^2 of sky to recalibrate LINEAR photometry and achieve errors of 0.03 mag for sources not limited by photon statistics with errors of 0.2 mag at r ~ 18. With its 200 observations per object on average, LINEAR data provide time domain information for the brightest four magnitudes of the SDSS survey. At the same time, LINEAR extends the deepest similar wide-area variability survey, the Northern Sky Variability Survey, by 3 mag. We briefly discuss the properties of about 7000 visually confirmed periodic variables, dominated by roughly equal fractions of RR Lyrae stars and eclipsing binary stars, and analyze their distribution in optical and infrared color-color diagrams. The LINEAR data set is publicly available from the SkyDOT Web site

A re-interpretation of the Triangulum-Andromeda stellar clouds: a population of halo stars kicked out of the Galactic disk

The Triangulum-Andromeda stellar clouds (TriAnd1 and TriAnd2) are a pair of concentric ring- or shell-like over-densities at large $R$ ($\approx$ 30 kpc) and $Z$ ($\approx$ -10 kpc) in the Galactic halo that are thought to have been formed from the accretion and disruption of a satellite galaxy. This paper critically re-examines this formation scenario by comparing the number ratio of RR Lyrae to M giant stars associated with the TriAnd clouds with other structures in the Galaxy. The current data suggest a stellar population for these over-densities ($f_{\rm RR:MG} < 0.38$ at 95% confidence) quite unlike any of the known satellites of the Milky Way ($f_{\rm RR:MG} \approx 0.5$ for the very largest and $f_{\rm RR:MG} >>1$ for the smaller satellites) and more like the population of stars born in the much deeper potential well inhabited by the Galactic disk ($f_{\rm RR:MG} < 0.01$). N-body simulations of a Milky-Way-like galaxy perturbed by the impact of a dwarf galaxy demonstrate that, in the right circumstances, concentric rings propagating outwards from that Galactic disk can plausibly produce similar over-densities. These results provide dramatic support for the recent proposal by Xu et al. (2015) that, rather than stars accreted from other galaxies, the TriAnd clouds could represent stars kicked-out from our own disk. If so, these would be the first populations of disk stars to be found in the Galactic halo and a clear signature of the importance of this second formation mechanism for stellar halos more generally. Moreover, their existence at the very extremities of the disk places strong constraints on the nature of the interaction that formed them.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figures; published in MNRA

Connecting the Milky Way potential profile to the orbital timescales and spatial structure of the Sagittarius Stream

Recent maps of the halo using RR Lyrae from Pan-STARRS1 have clearly depicted the spatial structure of the Sagittarius stream. These maps show the leading and trailing stream apocenters differ in galactocentric radius by a factor of two, and also resolve substructure in the stream at these apocenters. Here we present dynamical models that reproduce these features of the stream in simple Galactic potentials. We find that debris at the apocenters must be dynamically young, in the sense of being stripped off in the last two pericentric passages, while the Sagittarius dwarf is currently experiencing a third passage. The ratio of apocenters is sensitive to both dynamical friction and the outer slope of the Galactic rotation curve. These dependences can be understood with simple regularities connecting the apocentric radii, circular velocities, and orbital period of the progenitor. The effect of dynamical friction on the stream can be constrained using substructure within the leading apocenter. Our ensembles of models are not intended as statistically proper fits to the stream. Nevertheless, out of the range of models we consider, we consistently find the mass within 100 kpc to be $\sim 7 \times 10^{11} \, M_{\odot}$, with a nearly flat rotation curve between 50 and 100 kpc. This points to a more extended Galactic halo than assumed in some current models. As in previous work, we find prolate or triaxial halos ease agreement with the track of the leading stream. We display the behavior of our models in various observational spaces and characterize the substructure expected within the stream. In particular, the young trailing stream visible near trailing apocenter should exhibit a tight trend of velocity with distance separate from the older debris, and we suggest that this will serve as an especially useful probe of the outer Galactic potential.Comment: Submitted to MNRA

Search for high-amplitude Delta Scuti and RR Lyrae stars in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stripe 82 using principal component analysis

We propose a robust principal component analysis (PCA) framework for the exploitation of multi-band photometric measurements in large surveys. Period search results are improved using the time series of the first principal component due to its optimized signal-to-noise ratio.The presence of correlated excess variations in the multivariate time series enables the detection of weaker variability. Furthermore, the direction of the largest variance differs for certain types of variable stars. This can be used as an efficient attribute for classification. The application of the method to a subsample of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stripe 82 data yielded 132 high-amplitude Delta Scuti variables. We found also 129 new RR Lyrae variables, complementary to the catalogue of Sesar et al., 2010, extending the halo area mapped by Stripe 82 RR Lyrae stars towards the Galactic bulge. The sample comprises also 25 multiperiodic or Blazhko RR Lyrae stars.Comment: 23 pages, 17 figure

Statistical Searches for Microlensing Events in Large, Non-Uniformly Sampled Time-Domain Surveys: A Test Using Palomar Transient Factory Data

Many photometric time-domain surveys are driven by specific goals, such as searches for supernovae or transiting exoplanets, which set the cadence with which fields are re-imaged. In the case of the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF), several sub-surveys are conducted in parallel, leading to non-uniform sampling over its $\sim$$20,000 \mathrm{deg}^2$ footprint. While the median $7.26 \mathrm{deg}^2$ PTF field has been imaged $\sim$40 times in \textit{R}-band, $\sim$$2300 \mathrm{deg}^2$ have been observed $>$100 times. We use PTF data to study the trade-off between searching for microlensing events in a survey whose footprint is much larger than that of typical microlensing searches, but with far-from-optimal time sampling. To examine the probability that microlensing events can be recovered in these data, we test statistics used on uniformly sampled data to identify variables and transients. We find that the von Neumann ratio performs best for identifying simulated microlensing events in our data. We develop a selection method using this statistic and apply it to data from fields with $>$10 $R$-band observations, $1.1\times10^9$ light curves, uncovering three candidate microlensing events. We lack simultaneous, multi-color photometry to confirm these as microlensing events. However, their number is consistent with predictions for the event rate in the PTF footprint over the survey's three years of operations, as estimated from near-field microlensing models. This work can help constrain all-sky event rate predictions and tests microlensing signal recovery in large data sets, which will be useful to future time-domain surveys, such as that planned with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures; accepted for publication in ApJ. fixed author lis

The investigation of absolute proper motions of the XPM Catalogue

The XPM-1.0 is the regular version of the XPM catalogue. In comparison with XPM the astrometric catalogue of about 280 millions stars covering entire sky from -90 to +90 degrees in declination and in the magnitude range 10^m<B<22^m is something improved. The general procedure steps were followed as for XPM, but some of them are now performed on a more sophisticated level. The XPM-1.0 catalogue contains star positions, proper motions, 2MASS and USNO photometry of about 280 millions of the sources. We present some investigations of the absolute proper motions of XPM-1.0 catalogue and also the important information for the users of the catalogue. Unlike previous version, the XPM-1.0 contains the proper motions over the whole sky without gaps. In the fields, which cover the zone of avoidance or which contain less than of 25 galaxies a quasi absolute calibration was performed. The proper motion errors are varying from 3 to 10 mas/yr, depending on a specific field. The zero-point of the absolute proper motion frame (the absolute calibration) was specified with more than 1 million galaxies from 2MASS and USNO-A2.0. The mean formal error of absolute calibration is less than 1 mas/yr.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, accepte