Probing the Outer Galactic Halo With Rr Lyrae From the Catalina Surveys

Drake, A. J.; Catelan, M.; Djorgovski, S. G.; Torrealba, G.; Graham, M. J.; Belokurov, V.; Koposov, S. E.; Mahabal, A.; Prieto, J. L.; Donalek, C.; Williams, Robert E.; Larson, S. M.; Christensen, E.; Beshore, E. C.

doi:10.1088/0004-637x/763/1/32

Cited by 234 publications

(242 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…The percentage increase in the number of SSS RRab's identified in this work is similar to the increases in CSS-N RRab's from Drake et al (2013b) and DR14 compared to Drake et al (2013a). The combined number from CSS-N, MLS, and SSS data now total ∼33 000 RRab's (including previously known sources).…”

Section: Rrab'ssupporting

confidence: 78%

“…We note that our value of M t is as used by Drake et al (2013a) and is based on the fit to the light curve rather than sum of the values for the data points. The M t parameter itself is a measure of the fraction of time that a variable is below the mean magnitude compared to above it.…”

Section: Parameter and Class Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such depth and breadth is required to properly characterize the local variable population as well as the structure of the Galaxy itself. For example, the discovery of RR Lyrae standard candles is currently enabling us to trace the formation and extent of our Galaxy via the locations, velocity, and abundances of tidal streams and other features (Drake et al 2013a). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Catalina Surveys Southern periodic variable star catalogue

Drake

Djorgovski

Catelan

et al. 2017

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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166

133

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Here, we present the results from our analysis of 6 yr of optical photometry taken by the Siding Spring Survey (SSS). This completes a search for periodic variable stars within the 30 000 deg 2 of the sky covered by the Catalina Surveys. The current analysis covers 81 million sources with declinations between −20 • and −75 • with median magnitudes in the range 11 < V < 19.5. We find approximately 34 000 new periodic variable stars in addition to the ∼9000 RR Lyrae that we previously discovered in SSS data. This brings the total number of periodic variables identified in Catalina data to ∼110 000. The new SSS periodic variable stars mainly consist of eclipsing binaries, RR Lyrae, LPVs, RS CVn stars, δ Scutis, and Anomalous Cepheids. By cross-matching these variable stars with those from prior surveys, we find that ∼90 per cent of the sources are new discoveries and recover ∼95 per cent of the known periodic variables in the survey region. For the known sources, we find excellent agreement between our catalogue and prior values of luminosity, period, and amplitude. However, we find many variable stars that had previously been misclassified. Examining the distribution of RR Lyrae, we find a population associated with the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) that extends more than 20 • from its centre confirming recent evidence for the existence of a very extended stellar halo in the LMC. By combining SSS photometry with Dark Energy Survey data, we identify additional LMC halo RR Lyrae, thus confirming the significance of the population.

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Section: Rrab'ssupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: Parameter and Class Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Catalina Surveys Southern periodic variable star catalogue

Drake

Djorgovski

Catelan

et al. 2017

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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166

133

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“…All data are automatically processed in real time, and optical transients are immediately distributed using a variety of electronic mechanisms. 3 The data are unfiltered but are broadly calibrated to Johnson V from 2MASS data (see Drake et al 2013 for details). The accuracy of the V-band photometry is highly dependent on source colour but comparison with Landolt standard stars has shown that the colour correction is small for blue objects.…”

Section: Catalina Real-time Transient Surveymentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding extreme quasar optical variability with CRTS – I. Major AGN flares

Graham¹,

Djorgovski²,

Drake³

et al. 2017

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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There is a large degree of variety in the optical variability of quasars and it is unclear whether this is all attributable to a single (set of) physical mechanism(s). We present the results of a systematic search for major flares in active galactic nucleus (AGN) in the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey as part of a broader study into extreme quasar variability. Such flares are defined in a quantitative manner as being atop of the normal, stochastic variability of quasars. We have identified 51 events from over 900 000 known quasars and high-probability quasar candidates, typically lasting 900 d and with a median peak amplitude of m = 1.25 mag. Characterizing the flare profile with a Weibull distribution, we find that nine of the sources are well described by a single-point single-lens model. This supports the proposal by Lawrence et al. that microlensing is a plausible physical mechanism for extreme variability. However, we attribute the majority of our events to explosive stellar-related activity in the accretion disc: superluminous supernovae, tidal disruption events and mergers of stellar mass black holes.

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“…The images are processed using an aperture photometry pipeline based on SEXTRACTOR (Bertin & Arnouts 1996) and the unfiltered magnitudes are transformed to Landolt V using observations of standard stars (Drake et al 2013). Information on the transients detected, e.g.…”

Section: V L I G H T C U Rv E S F Ro M C Rt Smentioning

confidence: 99%

1000 cataclysmic variables from the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey

Breedt

Gänsicke

Drake

et al. 2014

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Over six years of operation, the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey (CRTS) has identified 1043 cataclysmic variable (CV) candidates -the largest sample of CVs from a single survey to date. Here, we provide spectroscopic identification of 85 systems fainter than g ≥ 19, including three AM Canum Venaticorum binaries, one helium-enriched CV, one polar and one new eclipsing CV. We analyse the outburst properties of the full sample and show that it contains a large fraction of low-accretion-rate CVs with long outburst recurrence times. We argue that most of the high-accretion-rate dwarf novae in the survey footprint have already been found and that future CRTS discoveries will be mostly low-accretion-rate systems. We find that CVs with white-dwarf-dominated spectra have significantly fewer outbursts in their CRTS light curves compared to disc-dominated CVs, reflecting the difference in their accretion rates. Comparing the CRTS sample to other samples of CVs, we estimate the overall external completeness to be 23.6 per cent, but show that as much as 56 per cent of CVs have variability amplitudes that are too small to be selected using the transient selection criteria employed by current ground-based surveys. The full table of CRTS CVs, including their outburst and spectroscopic properties examined in this paper, is provided in the online materials.

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Probing the Outer Galactic Halo With Rr Lyrae From the Catalina Surveys

Cited by 234 publications

References 84 publications

The Catalina Surveys Southern periodic variable star catalogue

The Catalina Surveys Southern periodic variable star catalogue

Understanding extreme quasar optical variability with CRTS – I. Major AGN flares

1000 cataclysmic variables from the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey

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