The VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea survey: A first glance on stellar variability

I. Dekany; M. Catelan; D. Minniti; the VVV Collaboration

The VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea survey: A first glance on stellar variability

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2011-11-09 v2 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Authors: I. Dekany , M. Catelan , D. Minniti , the VVV Collaboration

Abstract

VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) is an ESO public near-infrared variability survey of the Galactic bulge and an adjacent area of the southern mid-plane. It will produce a deep atlas in the ZYJHKs filters, and a Ks-band time-series database of ~10^9 point sources, among which >~10^6 are expected to be variable. One of VVV's immediate scientific goals is to provide accurate light curves of primary distance indicators, such as RR Lyrae stars, and utilize these data to produce a 3-D map of the surveyed area and, ultimately, trace the structure of the inner Galaxy. We give, based on the first ~1.5 years of the 5-yr-long survey, an early assessment on the basic properties and the overall quality of the VVV photometric time-series, and use these data to put an estimate of the fraction of variable stellar sources.

Keywords

VVV survey stellar variability Galactic bulge near-infrared light curves RR Lyrae stars 3-D map

Cite

@article{arxiv.1111.0909,
  title  = {The VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea survey: A first glance on stellar variability},
  author = {I. Dekany and M. Catelan and D. Minniti and the VVV Collaboration},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1111.0909},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

To appear in the proceedings of the Granada Stellar Pulsation conference, ed. L. A. Balona et al

The VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea survey: A first glance on stellar variability

Abstract

Keywords

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