The TAOS Project Stellar Variability II. Detection of 15 Variable Stars

TL;DR

This study analyzes TAOS survey data to identify and classify 15 previously unknown variable stars, demonstrating the survey's effectiveness in stellar variability detection over a large sky area.

Contribution

First detection and classification of 15 new variable stars using TAOS photometric data from a specific sky field.

Findings

Identified 81 candidate variables in a 3 square degree field.

Classified 29 variables, including RR Lyrae, Cepheid, delta Scuti, SX Phoenicis, semi-regular, and eclipsing binaries.

Discovered 15 previously unknown variable stars.

Abstract

The Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS) project has collected more than a billion photometric measurements since 2005 January. These sky survey data-covering timescales from a fraction of a second to a few hundred days-are a useful source to study stellar variability. A total of 167 star fields, mostly along the ecliptic plane, have been selected for photometric monitoring with the TAOS telescopes. This paper presents our initial analysis of a search for periodic variable stars from the time-series TAOS data on one particular TAOS field, No. 151 (RA = 17$^{\rm h}30^{\rm m}6\fs$67, Dec = 27\degr17\arcmin 30\arcsec, J2000), which had been observed over 47 epochs in 2005. A total of 81 candidate variables are identified in the 3 square degree field, with magnitudes in the range 8 < R < 16. On the basis of the periodicity and shape of the lightcurves, 29 variables, 15 of which were previously unknown, are classified as RR Lyrae, Cepheid, delta Scuti, SX Phonencis, semi-regular and eclipsing binaries.