The VVV survey: Long-period variable stars I. Photometric catalog of ten VVV/OGLE tiles

Abstract

Long-period variable stars (LPVs) are pulsating red giants, primarily in the asymptotic giant branch phase, and they include both Miras and semi-regular variables (SRVs). Their period-age and period-luminosity relations enable us to trace different stellar populations, as they are intrinsically very bright and cover a wide range in distances and ages. The purpose of this study is to establish a census of LPV stars in a region close to the Galactic center, using the six-year database of the Vista Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) ESO Public Survey, as well as to describe the methodology that was employed to search for and characterize LPVs using VVV data. Near-IR surveys such as VVV provide a unique opportunity to probe the high-extinction innermost regions of the Milky Way. The detection and analysis of the intrinsically bright Miras in this region could provide us with an excellent probe of the properties of the Milky Way far behind its bulge. We used point-spread function photometry for all available $K_s$-band images in ten VVV tiles, covering $16.4{°}^2$ in total, overlapping fields observed in the course of the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE)-III survey. We designed a method to select LPV candidates, and we used the known variables from OGLE-III and other known variables from the literature to test our approach. The reduced ${\chi }^2$ statistic, along with the flux-independent index $K_{(fi)}$, were used in our analysis. The Lomb-Scargle period search method, Fourier analysis, template fitting, and visual inspection were then performed to refine our sample and characterize the properties of the stars included in our catalog. A final sample of 130 Mira candidates, of which 129 are new discoveries, was thus obtained, with periods in the range between about 80 and 1400~days.

References in corpus (31)

• The generalised Lomb-Scargle periodogram. A new formalism for the floating-mean and Keplerian periodograms
• The UKIDSS Galactic Plane Survey
• Automated supervised classification of variable stars I. Methodology
• Near-Infrared Photometry of Carbon Stars
• VIRAC: The VVV Infrared Astrometric Catalogue
• The VISTA ZYJHKs Photometric System: Calibration from 2MASS
• Inferring the Age of the Universe with Globular Clusters
• Extinction ratios in the inner Galaxy as revealed by the VVV survey
• The Edge of the Galaxy
• Full 5D characterisation of the Sagittarius stream with Gaia DR2 RR Lyrae
• Age Demographics of the Milky Way Disk and Bulge
• A lack of classical Cepheids in the inner part of the Galactic disk
• Mapping the stellar age of the Milky Way bulge with the VVV. III. High resolution reddening map
• Binarity as the Origin of Long Secondary Periods in Red Giant Stars
• Proper motions in the VVV Survey: Results for more than 15 million stars across NGC 6544
• Modelling Long-Period Variables -- II. Fundamental mode pulsation in the nonlinear regime
• Using classical Cepheids to study the far side of the Milky Way disk: I. Spectroscopic classification and the metallicity gradient
• Absence of an X-shaped Structure in the Milky Way Bulge Using Mira Variable Stars
• Discovery of carbon-rich Miras in the Galactic bulge
• Discovery of a Pair of Classical Cepheids in an Invisible Cluster Beyond the Galactic Bulge
• Cool, Luminous, and Highly Variable Stars in the Magellanic Clouds from ASAS-SN: Implications for Thorne-Żytkow Objects and Super-Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars
• New type II Cepheids from VVV data towards the Galactic center
• The VVV Infrared Variability Catalog (VIVA-I)
• VVV WIN 1733$-$3349: a low extinction window to probe the far side of the Milky Way bulge
• Characterizing AGB stars in Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) bands
• Study of extremely reddened AGB stars in the Galactic bulge
• Light and colour variations of Mira variables in the Small Magellanic Cloud
• VVV survey near-infrared colour catalogue of known variable stars
• The formation history of the Milky Way disc with high-resolution cosmological simulations
• VVV survey microlensing: candidate events with source in the far disk
• A search for distant, pulsating red giants in the southern halo

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Mira variables in the Milky Way's nuclear stellar disc: discovery and classification
• Hunting for C-rich long-period variable stars in the Milky Way's bar-bulge using unsupervised classification of Gaia BP/RP spectra
• Large amplitude periodic outbursts and long period variables in the VVV VIRAC2-$\beta$ database
• Spectroscopic confirmation of high-amplitude eruptive YSOs and dipping giants from the VVV survey
• The most variable VVV sources: eruptive protostars, dipping giants in the Nuclear Disc and others
• Searching for Magnetar Binaries Disrupted by Core-Collapse Supernovae
• VVV catalog of ab-type RR Lyrae in the inner Galactic bulge
• Unveiling VVV/WISE Mira variables on the far side of the Galactic disk: Distances, kinematics and a new extinction law
• Long-period maser-bearing Miras in the Galactic center: period-luminosity relations and extinction estimates
• Recovering Signals in CoRoT Mission (RSCoRoT): I. Short Period Variable Stars