The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment. The OGLE-III Catalog of Variable Stars. III. RR Lyrae Stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive catalog of 24,906 RR Lyrae variable stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud from the OGLE-III survey, including their classifications, properties, and spatial distribution, providing valuable data for stellar and galactic studies.

Contribution

It provides the largest and most detailed catalog of RR Lyrae stars in the LMC, including new discoveries and analysis of their spatial and statistical properties.

Findings

RR Lyrae stars are distributed non-spherically, elongated along the LMC bar.

The modal V-band magnitude for RRab stars is 19.36 mag.

Mean periods are 0.576, 0.337, and 0.270 days for RRab, RRc, and RRe stars.

Abstract

The third part of the OGLE-III Catalog of Variable Stars comprises 24906 RR Lyr stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). This sample consists of 17693 fundamental-mode (RRab), 4958 first-overtone (RRc), 986 double-mode (RRd) and 1269 suspected second-overtone (RRe) pulsators. 66 objects are foreground Galactic RR Lyr stars. The catalog data include basic photometric and astrometric properties of these RR Lyr stars, multi-epoch VI photometry and finding charts. We detected one new RR Lyr star with additional eclipsing variations. The spatial distribution of RR Lyr stars in the LMC is distinctly non-spherical and it is elongated in the same direction as the LMC bar. The basic statistical features of RR Lyr stars in the LMC are provided. The apparent V-band magnitudes for RRab stars have the modal value at 19.36 mag, and for overtone RR Lyr stars it is about 19.32 mag. The mean periods for RRab, RRc and RRe stars are 0.576, 0.337 and 0.270 days, respectively.