The impact of large-scale, long-term optical surveys on pulsating star research

Abstract

Abstract. The era of large-scale photometric variability surveys began a quarter of a century ago, when three microlensing projects -EROS, MACHO, and OGLE -started their operation. These surveys initiated a revolution in the field of variable stars and in the next years they inspired many new observational projects. Large-scale optical surveys multiplied the number of variable stars known in the Universe. The huge, homogeneous and complete catalogs of pulsating stars, such as Cepheids, RR Lyrae stars, or long-period variables, offer an unprecedented opportunity to calibrate and test the accuracy of various distance indicators, to trace the three-dimensional structure of the Milky Way and other galaxies, to discover exotic types of intrinsically variable stars, or to study previously unknown features and behaviors of pulsators. We present historical and recent findings on various types of pulsating stars obtained from the optical large-scale surveys, with particular emphasis on the OGLE project which currently offers the largest photometric database among surveys for stellar variability.

Twenty-five years of using microlensing to study dark matter

“…Motivated by the work of Alcock et al and Aubourg et al, microlensing surveys improved enormously over the following 25 years, reaching capabilities to observe about 1 billion stars per night 7 . The huge data sets of high-quality light-curve data revolutionized many fields of astronomy -for example, the study of pulsating stars, extrasolar planets and star formation 8,9 . Moreover, millions of objects of varying brightness and thousands of microlensing events were detected, mostly in the direction of the Galactic bulge (a spherical structure near the centre of our Galaxy).…”

Stellar Variability in Ground-Based Photometric Surveys: An Overview

“…There is a natural synergy between the many surveys mentioned in the previous section and variable star research. This is reviewed in some detail by Soszyński (2017), in the case of µL, and Kovacs (2017), in the case of transiting exoplanets. Indeed, our current knowledge of stellar variability across the Milky Way and beyond has been built in part by some of these projects.…”

Pulsating stars and the Virtual Observatory

“…Two main tools are now providing second-level outputs within the portal: the SISMA ( [22]) and the SSI tools ( [23]) (Fig. 3). 4 Toucan, the VO gateway to stellar models Nowadays, model databases are extensively used, leading to interpret theoretically large sets of observations, like those provided by the space missions and surveys (e.g., [19,20,24,25]). …”