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Title:
Exploring the Variable Sky with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Authors:
Sesar, Branimir; Ivezić, Željko; Lupton, Robert H.; Jurić, Mario; Gunn, James E.; Knapp, Gillian R.; DeLee, Nathan; Smith, J. Allyn; Miknaitis, Gajus; Lin, Huan; Tucker, Douglas; Doi, Mamoru; Tanaka, Masayuki; Fukugita, Masataka; Holtzman, Jon; Kent, Steve; Yanny, Brian; Schlegel, David; Finkbeiner, Douglas; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Rockosi, Constance M.; Bond, Nicholas; Lee, Brian; Stoughton, Chris; Jester, Sebastian; Harris, Hugh; Harding, Paul; Brinkmann, Jon; Schneider, Donald P.; York, Donald; Richmond, Michael W.; Vanden Berk, Daniel
Affiliation:
AA(Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195-1580, USA ), AB(Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195-1580, USA ), AC(Princeton University Observatory, Princeton, NJ 08544-1001, USA ), AD(Institute for Advanced Study, 1 Einstein Drive, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA ), AE(Princeton University Observatory, Princeton, NJ 08544-1001, USA ), AF(Princeton University Observatory, Princeton, NJ 08544-1001, USA ), AG(Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-2320, USA ), AH(Department of Physics and Astronomy, Austin Peay State University, Box 4608, Clarksville, TN 37044, USA ), AI(Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA ), AJ(Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA ), AK(Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA ), AL(Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-0015, Japan ), AM(Department of Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan ), AN(Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan ), AO(New Mexico State University, 1320 Frenger Street, Box 30001, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA ), AP(Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA ), AQ(Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA ), AR(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, MS 50R5032, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA ), AS(Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA ), AT(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, MS 50R5032, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA ), AU(University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060, USA ), AV(Princeton University Observatory, Princeton, NJ 08544-1001, USA ), AW(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, MS 50R5032, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA ), AX(Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA ), AY(Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany ), AZ(US Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station, Box 1149, Flagstaff, AZ 86002, USA ), BA(Department of Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA ), BB(Apache Point Observatory, 2001 Apache Point Road, Box 59, Sunspot, NM 88349-0059, USA ), BC(Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA ), BD(Astronomy and Astrophysics Center, University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA ), BE(Department of Physics, Rochester Institute of Technology, 84 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5603, USA), BF(Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA )
Publication:
The Astronomical Journal, Volume 134, Issue 6, pp. 2236-2251 (2007). (AJ Homepage)
Publication Date:
12/2007
Origin:
IOP
DOI:
10.1086/521819
Bibliographic Code:
2007AJ....134.2236S

Abstract

We quantify the variability of faint unresolved optical sources using a catalog based on multiple SDSS imaging observations. The catalog covers SDSS stripe 82, which lies along the celestial equator in the southern Galactic hemisphere (22h24m < αJ2000.0 < 04h08m, -1.27° < δJ2000.0 < +1.27°, ~290 deg2), and contains 34 million photometric observations in the SDSS ugriz system for 748,084 unresolved sources at high Galactic latitudes (b < -20°) that were observed at least four times in each of the ugri bands (with a median of 10 observations obtained over ~6 yr). In each photometric bandpass we compute various low-order light-curve statistics, such as rms scatter, χ2 per degree of freedom, skewness, and minimum and maximum magnitude, and use them to select and study variable sources. We find that 2% of unresolved optical sources brighter than g = 20.5 appear variable at the 0.05 mag level (rms) simultaneously in the g and r bands (at high Galactic latitudes). The majority (2 out of 3) of these variable sources are low-redshift (<2) quasars, although they represent only 2% of all sources in the adopted flux-limited sample. We find that at least 90% of quasars are variable at the 0.03 mag level (rms) and confirm that variability is as good a method for finding low-redshift quasars as the UV excess color selection (at high Galactic latitudes). We analyze the distribution of light-curve skewness for quasars and find that it is centered on zero. We find that about one-fourth of the variable stars are RR Lyrae stars, and that only 0.5% of stars from the main stellar locus are variable at the 0.05 mag level. The distribution of light-curve skewness in the g - r versus u - g color-color diagram on the main stellar locus is found to be bimodal (with one mode consistent with Algol-like behavior). Using over 600 RR Lyrae stars, we demonstrate rich halo substructure out to distances of 100 kpc. We extrapolate these results to the expected performance by the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and estimate that it will obtain well-sampled, 2% accurate, multicolor light curves for ~2 million low-redshift quasars and discover at least 50 million variable stars.
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