Variability and transient search in the SUDARE-VOICE field: a new method to extract the light curves

Abstract

The VST Optical Imaging of the CDFS and ES1 Fields (VOICE) Survey, in synergy with the SUDARE survey, is a deep optical $ugri$ imaging of the CDFS and ES1 fields using the VLT Survey Telescope (VST). The observations for the CDFS field comprise about 4.38 deg${}^2$ down to $r\sim 26$ mag. The total on-sky time spans over four years in this field, distributed over four adjacent sub-fields. In this paper, we use the multi-epoch $r$-band imaging data to measure the variability of the detected objects and search for transients. We perform careful astrometric and photometric calibrations and point spread function (PSF) modeling. A new method, referring to as differential running-average photometry, is proposed to measure the light curves of the detected objects. With the method, the difference of PSFs between different epochs can be reduced, and the background fluctuations are also suppressed. Detailed uncertainty analysis and detrending corrections on the light curves are performed. We visually inspect the light curves to select variable objects, and present some objects with interesting light curves. Further investigation of these objects in combination with multi-band data will be presented in our forthcoming paper.

arXiv comment13 pages, 12 figures. MNRAS accepted

References in corpus (68)

• Observational Evidence from Supernovae for an Accelerating Universe and a Cosmological Constant
• Measurements of Omega and Lambda from 42 High-Redshift Supernovae
• LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products
• The Galaxy Evolution Explorer: A Space Ultraviolet Survey Mission
• The Supernova Legacy Survey: Measurement of Omega_M, Omega_Lambda and w from the First Year Data Set
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: Spectra and redshifts
• CANDELS: The Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey
• Gaia Data Release 1. Summary of the astrometric, photometric, and survey properties
• CANDELS: The Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey - The Hubble Space Telescope Observations, Imaging Data Products and Mosaics
• Cosmic-Ray Rejection by Laplacian Edge Detection
• A method for optimal image subtraction
• First Results from the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey
• Astrophysics Source Code Library
• The Palomar Transient Factory: System Overview, Performance and First Results
• The 6dF Galaxy Survey: Final Redshift Release (DR3) and Southern Large-Scale Structures
• The Dark Energy Survey: more than dark energy - an overview
• The Zwicky Transient Facility: Science Objectives
• The Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey: HerMES
• The TESS Input Catalog and Candidate Target List
• SWIRE: The SIRTF Wide-area InfraRed Extragalactic Survey
• The 6dF Galaxy Survey: Samples, Observational Techniques and the First Data Release
• The Chandra Deep Field-South Survey: 7 Ms Source Catalogs
• Optical Flares from the Tidal Disruption of Stars by Massive Black Holes
• First Results from the X-ray and Optical Survey of the Chandra Deep Field South
• Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler. VIII. A Fully Automated Catalog With Measured Completeness and Reliability Based on Data Release 25
• The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey - First epoch VVDS-Deep survey: 11564 spectra with 17.5<=IAB<=24, and the redshift distribution over 0< z <=5
• The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey final data release: a spectroscopic sample of 35016 galaxies and AGN out to z~6.7 selected with 17.5<=i_{AB}<=24.7
• Progenitors of type Ia supernovae
• Hubble Space Telescope Fine Guidance Sensor Parallaxes of Galactic Cepheid Variable Stars: Period-Luminosity Relations
• The VISTA Deep Extragalactic Observations (VIDEO) Survey
• First Cosmology Results using Type Ia Supernovae from the Dark Energy Survey: Constraints on Cosmological Parameters
• Proper image subtraction - optimal transient detection, photometry and hypothesis testing
• The European Large Area ISO Survey I: Goals, Definition and Observation
• A New Algorithm For Difference Image Analysis
• New Results from the X-ray and Optical Survey of the Chandra Deep Field South: The 300ks Exposure
• Deep ATLAS radio observations of the CDFS-SWIRE field
• The Half Million Quasars (HMQ) Catalogue
• The Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey (SERVS): survey definition and goals
• The 2 Ms Chandra Deep Field-North Survey and the 250 ks Extended Chandra Deep Field-South Survey: Improved Point-Source Catalogs
• The European Large Area ISO Survey (ELAIS): The Final Band-merged Catalogue
• The XMM Deep survey in the CDFS I. First results on heavily obscured AGN
• The VANDELS ESO public spectroscopic survey: observations and first data release
• The VIMOS Ultra Deep Survey First Data Release: spectra and spectroscopic redshifts of 698 objects up to z~6 in CANDELS
• Deep Extragalactic VIsible Legacy Survey (DEVILS): Motivation, Design and Target Catalogue
• Supernova rates from the SUDARE VST-Omegacam search. I
• First Cosmology Results Using Type Ia Supernovae From the Dark Energy Survey: Photometric Pipeline and Light Curve Data Release
• Chandra ACIS Survey of X-ray Point Sources: The Source Catalog
• ATLAS - I. Third Release of 1.4 GHz Mosaics and Component Catalogues
• Gaia Data Release 2: Summary of the variability processing & analysis results
• The HerMES SPIRE submillimeter local luminosity function
• Finding, characterizing and classifying variable sources in multi-epoch sky surveys: QSOs and RR Lyrae in PS1 3$\pi$ data
• The High Cadence Transient Survey (HiTS) - I. Survey design and supernova shock breakout constraints
• Near Infrared Variability of obscured and unobscured X-ray selected AGN in the COSMOS field
• Supernovae in Low-Redshift Galaxy Clusters: Observations by the Wise Observatory Optical Transient Search (WOOTS)
• Variability-selected Active Galactic Nuclei in the VST-SUDARE/VOICE Survey of the COSMOS Field
• Supernova rates from the SUDARE VST-Omegacam search II. Rates in a galaxy sample
• Optically variable active galactic nuclei in the 3 yr VST survey of the COSMOS field
• SUDARE-VOICE variability-selection of Active Galaxies in the Chandra Deep Field South and the SERVS/SWIRE region
• The SkyMapper Transient Survey
• Machine Learning on Difference Image Analysis: A comparison of methods for transient detection
• The High Cadence Transient Survey (HITS): Compilation and characterization of light-curve catalogs
• Final Analysis of ELAIS 15 $\mu$m Observations : Method, Reduction and Catalogue
• Difference Image Analysis of Defocused Observations with CSTAR
• Extending the variability selection of active galactic nuclei in the W-CDF-S and SERVS/SWIRE region
• The VOICE Survey : VST Optical Imaging of the CDFS and ES1 Fields
• Weak Lensing Study in VOICE Survey II: Shear Bias Calibrations
• The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program: Calibration of the Near-Infrared RR Lyrae Period-Luminosity Relation With HST
• Deep CFHT Y-band imaging of VVDS-F22 field: I. data products and photometric redshifts

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Selection of optically variable active galactic nuclei via a random forest algorithm
• Identification of problematic epochs in astronomical time series through transfer learning
• Finding Fast Transients in Real Time Using Novel Light Curve Analysis Algorithm