VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV): The public ESO near-IR variability survey of the Milky Way

Minniti, D.; Lucas, P. W.; Emerson, J. P.; Saito, R. K.; Hempel, M.; Pietrukowicz, P.; Ahumada, A. V.; Alonso, M. V.; Alonso-Garcia, J.; Arias, J. I.; Bandyopadhyay, R. M.; Barbá, R. H.; Barbuy, B.; Bedin, L. R.; Bica, E.; Borissova, J.; Bronfman, L.; Carraro, G.; Catelan, M.; Clariá, J. J.; Cross, N.; de Grijs, R.; Dékány, I.; Drew, J. E.; Fariña, C.; Feinstein, C.; Fernández Lajús, E.; Gamen, R. C.; Geisler, D.; Gieren, W.; Goldman, B.; Gonzalez, O. A.; Gunthardt, G.; Gurovich, S.; Hambly, N. C.; Irwin, M. J.; Ivanov, V. D.; Jordán, A.; Kerins, E.; Kinemuchi, K.; Kurtev, R.; López-Corredoira, M.; Maccarone, T.; Masetti, N.; Merlo, D.; Messineo, M.; Mirabel, I. F.; Monaco, L.; Morelli, L.; Padilla, N.; Palma, T.; Parisi, M. C.; Pignata, G.; Rejkuba, M.; Roman-Lopes, A.; Sale, S. E.; Schreiber, M. R.; Schröder, A. C.; Smith, M.; Sodré, L., Jr.; Soto, M.; Tamura, M.; Tappert, C.; Thompson, M. A.; Toledo, I.; Zoccali, M.; Pietrzynski, G.
Referencia bibliográfica

New Astronomy, Volume 15, Issue 5, p. 433-443.

Fecha de publicación:
7
2010
Revista
Número de autores
67
Número de autores del IAC
1
Número de citas
846
Número de citas referidas
728
Descripción
We describe the public ESO near-IR variability survey (VVV) scanning the Milky Way bulge and an adjacent section of the mid-plane where star formation activity is high. The survey will take 1929 h of observations with the 4-m VISTA telescope during 5 years (2010-2014), covering ˜109 point sources across an area of 520 deg2, including 33 known globular clusters and ˜350 open clusters. The final product will be a deep near-IR atlas in five passbands (0.9-2.5 μm) and a catalogue of more than 106 variable point sources. Unlike single-epoch surveys that, in most cases, only produce 2-D maps, the VVV variable star survey will enable the construction of a 3-D map of the surveyed region using well-understood distance indicators such as RR Lyrae stars, and Cepheids. It will yield important information on the ages of the populations. The observations will be combined with data from MACHO, OGLE, EROS, VST, Spitzer, HST, Chandra, INTEGRAL, WISE, Fermi LAT, XMM-Newton, GAIA and ALMA for a complete understanding of the variable sources in the inner Milky Way. This public survey will provide data available to the whole community and therefore will enable further studies of the history of the Milky Way, its globular cluster evolution, and the population census of the Galactic Bulge and center, as well as the investigations of the star forming regions in the disk. The combined variable star catalogues will have important implications for theoretical investigations of pulsation properties of stars.
Proyectos relacionados
Project Image
Morfología y dinámica de la Vía Láctea
El Proyecto se estructura en dos partes, diferenciadas pero complementarias: morfología y dinámica. El estudio detallado de la morfología de la Vía Láctea pretende proveer una base de datos de distribución estelar en las regiones más alejadas y extintas de nuestra Galaxia, mediante el desarrollo de modelos semiempíricos a partir de la información
Martín
López Corredoira