The Milky Way Revealed by Variable Stars. I. Sample Selection of RR Lyrae Stars and Evidence for Merger History

In order to study the Milky Way, RR Lyrae (RRL) variable stars identified by Gaia, ASAS-SN, and ZTF sky survey projects have been analyzed as tracers in this work. Photometric and spectroscopic information of 3417 RRLs including proper motions, radial velocity, and metallcity are obtained from observational data of Gaia, LAMOST, GALAH, APOGEE, and RAVE. Precise distances of RRLs with typical uncertainties less than 3% are derived by using a recent comprehensive period–luminosity–metallicity relation. Our results from kinematical and chemical analysis provide important clues for the assembly history of the Milky Way, especially for the Gaia–Sausage ancient merger. The kinematical and chemical trends found in this work are consistent with those of recent simulations that indicated that the Gaia–Sausage merger had a dual origin in the Galactic thick disk and halo. As recent similar works have found, the halo RRL sample in this work contains a subset of radially biased orbits besides a more isotropic component. This higher orbital anisotropy component amounts to β ≃ 0.8, and it contributes between 42% and 83% of the halo RRLs at 4 < R( kpc) < 20.

First Results on RR Lyrae Stars with the TESS Space Telescope: Untangling the Connections between Mode Content, Colors, and Distances

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) space telescope is collecting continuous, high-precision optical photometry of stars throughout the sky, including thousands of RR Lyrae stars. In this paper, we present results for an initial sample of 118 nearby RR Lyrae stars observed in TESS Sectors 1 and 2. We use differential image photometry to generate light curves and analyze their mode content and modulation properties. We combine accurate light-curve parameters from TESS with parallax and color information from the Gaia mission to create a comprehensive classification scheme. We build a clean sample, preserving RR Lyrae stars with unusual light-curve shapes, while separating other types of pulsating stars. We find that a large fraction of RR Lyrae stars exhibit various low-amplitude modes, but the distribution of those modes is markedly different from those of the bulge stars. This suggests that differences in physical parameters have an observable effect on the excitation of extra modes, potentially offering a way to uncover the origins of these signals. However, mode identification is hindered by uncertainties when identifying the true pulsation frequencies of the extra modes. We compare mode amplitude ratios in classical double-mode stars to stars with extra modes at low amplitudes and find that they separate into two distinct groups. Finally, we find a high percentage of modulated stars among the fundamental mode pulsators, but also find that at least 28% of them do not exhibit modulation, confirming that a significant fraction of stars lack the Blazhko effect.

The Impact of Observing Strategy on the Reliable Classification of Standard Candle Stars: Detection of Amplitude, Period, and Phase Modulation (Blazhko Effect) of RR Lyrae Stars with LSST

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will carry out its Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) with a single-exposure depth of r ∼ 24.7 and an anticipated baseline of 10 yr, allowing access to the Milky Way’s old halo not only deeper than, but also with a longer baseline and better cadence than, e.g., PS1 3π. This will make the LSST ideal to study populations of variable stars such as RR Lyrae stars (RRL). Here, we address the question of observing strategy optimization of LSST, as survey footprint definition, single-visit exposure time, as well as the cadence of repeat visits in different filters are yet to be finalized. We present metrics used to assess the impact of different observing strategies on the reliable detectability and classification of standard candle variable stars, including detection of amplitude, period, and phase modulation effects of RRL (the so-called Blazhko effect), by evaluating metrics for simulated potential survey designs. So far, due to the depths and cadences of typical all-sky surveys, it has been nearly impossible to study this effect on a larger sample. All-sky surveys with relatively few observations over a moderately long baseline allow only for fitting phase-folded RRL light curves, thus integrating over the complete survey length and hiding any information regarding possible period or phase modulation during the survey. On the other hand, surveys with cadences fit to detect slightly changing light curves usually have a relatively small footprint. LSST’s survey strategy, however, will allow for studying variable stars in a way that makes population studies possible.

RR Lyrae Stars in the Newly Discovered Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxy Centaurus I*

We report the detection of three RR Lyrae (RRL) stars (two RRc and one RRab) in the ultra-faint dwarf (UFD) galaxy Centaurus I (Cen I) and two Milky Way (MW) δ Scuti/SX Phoenicis stars based on multi-epoch giz DECam observations. The two RRc stars are located within two times the half-light radius (r h ) of Cen I, while the RRab star (CenI-V3) is at ∼6 r h . The presence of three distant RRL stars clustered this tightly in space represents a 4.7σ excess relative to the smooth distribution of RRL in the Galactic halo. Using the newly detected RRL stars, we obtain a distance modulus to Cen I of μ 0 = 20.354 ± 0.002 mag (σ = 0.03 mag), a heliocentric distance of D ⊙ = 117.7 ± 0.1 kpc (σ = 1.6 kpc), with systematic errors of 0.07 mag and 4 kpc. The location of the Cen I RRL stars in the Bailey diagram is in agreement with other UFD galaxies (mainly Oosterhoff II). Finally, we study the relative rate of RRc+RRd (RRcd) stars (f cd) in UFD and classical dwarf galaxies. The full sample of MW dwarf galaxies gives a mean of f cd = 0.28. While several UFD galaxies, such as Cen I, present higher RRcd ratios, if we combine the RRL populations of all UFD galaxies, the RRcd ratio is similar to the one obtained for the classical dwarfs (f cd ∼ 0.3). Therefore, there is no evidence for a different fraction of RRcd stars in UFD and classical dwarf galaxies.

Identifications of RR Lyrae stars and Quasars from the simulated data of Mephisto-W Survey

We have investigated the feasibilities and accuracies of the identifications of RR Lyrae stars and quasars from the simulated data of the Multi-channel Photometric Survey Telescope (Mephisto) W Survey. Based on the variable sources light curve libraries from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 data and the observation history simulation from the Mephisto-W Survey Scheduler, we have simulated the uvgriz multi-band light curves of RR Lyrae stars, quasars and other variable sources for the first year observation of Mephisto W Survey. We have applied the ensemble machine learning algorithm Random Forest Classifier (RFC) to identify RR Lyrae stars and quasars, respectively. We build training and test samples and extract ~ 150 features from the simulated light curves and train two RFCs respectively for the RR Lyrae star and quasar classification. We find that, our RFCs are able to select the RR Lyrae stars and quasars with remarkably high precision and completeness, with purity = 95.4% and completeness = 96.9% for the RR Lyrae RFC and purity = 91.4% and completeness = 90.2% for the quasar RFC. We have also derived relative importances of the extracted features utilized to classify RR Lyrae stars and quasars.

Optical and Near-infrared Pulsation Properties of RR Lyrae and Population II Cepheid Variables in the Messier 15 Globular Cluster

Messier 15 (NGC 7078) is an old and metal-poor post core-collapse globular cluster that hosts a rich population of variable stars. We report new optical (gi) and near-infrared (NIR, JK s ) multi-epoch observations for 129 RR Lyrae, 4 Population II Cepheids (3 BL Herculis, 1 W Virginis), and 1 anomalous Cepheid variable candidate in M15 obtained using the MegaCam and the WIRCam instruments on the 3.6 m Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope. Multi-band data are used to improve the periods and classification of variable stars, and determine accurate mean magnitudes and pulsational amplitudes from the light curves fitted with optical and NIR templates. We derive optical and NIR period–luminosity relations for RR Lyrae stars which are best constrained in the K s band, m K s = − 2.333 ( 0.054 ) log P + 13.948 ( 0.015 ) with a scatter of only 0.037 mag. Theoretical and empirical calibrations of RR Lyrae period–luminosity–metallicity relations are used to derive a true distance modulus to M15: 15.196 ± 0.026 (statistical) ± 0.039 (systematic) mag. Our precise distance moduli based on RR Lyrae stars and Population II Cepheid variables are mutually consistent and agree with recent distance measurements in the literature based on Gaia parallaxes and other independent methods.