The Quintuplet cluster is one of the most massive star clusters in the Milky Way, situated very close to the Galactic center. We present a new search for variable stars in the vicinity of the cluster, using the five-year database of the Vista Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) ESO Public Survey in the near-infrared. A total of 7586 objects were identified in the zone around 2′ from the cluster center, using 55 KS-band epochs. Thirty-three stars show KS-band variability, 24 of them being previously undiscovered. Most of the variable stars found are slow/semiregular variables, long-period variables of the Mira type, and OH/IR stars. In addition, a good number of our candidates show variations in a rather short timescale. We also propose four Young Stellar Object (YSO) candidates, which could be cluster members.
@article{arxiv.1607.01795,
title = {Variable Stars in the Quintuplet stellar cluster with the VVV Survey},
author = {C. Navarro Molina and J. Borissova and M. Catelan and J. Alonso-García and E. Kerins and R. Kurtev and P. W. Lucas and N. Medina and D. Minniti and I. Dékány},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1607.01795},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
14 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS