The QUEST RR Lyrae Survey: III. The Low Galactic Latitude Catalogue

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive survey of RR Lyrae stars at low galactic latitude, covering a large sky area with multi-epoch photometry, identifying 211 RR Lyrae stars, and providing valuable data for Galactic structure studies.

Contribution

First deep low galactic latitude RR Lyrae survey using QUEST mosaic camera, providing detailed catalog and analysis of 211 RR Lyrae stars with high completeness and distance estimates.

Findings

Identified 211 RR Lyrae stars, including 160 ab and 51 c types.

Achieved >95% completeness for RRab and ~85% for RRc stars.

Provided distance estimates with ~7% error, spanning 0.5 to 40 kpc.

Abstract

We present results for the QUEST RR Lyrae Survey at low galactic latitude, conducted entirely with observations obtained with the QUEST mosaic camera and the 1.0/1.5m J\"urgen Stock Schmidt telescope at the National Observatory of Venezuela. The survey spans an area of 476 sq. deg on the sky, with multi-epoch observations in the V, R and I photometric bands for 6.5x10^6 stars in the galactic latitude range 30<= b(deg) <=+25, in a direction close to the Galactic Anticenter 190<= l(deg)<= 230. The variability survey has a typical number of 30 observations per object in V and I and ~25 in R, with up to ~120-150 epochs in V and I and up to ~100 in R in the best sampled regions. The completeness magnitudes of the survey are V=R=18.5 mag, and I=18.0 mag. We identified 211 RR Lyrae stars, 160 bona fide stars of type ab and 51 candidates of type c, ours being the first deep RR Lyrae survey conducted at low galactic latitude.The completeness of the RR Lyrae survey was estimated in >95 per cent and ~85 per cent for RRab and RRc stars respectively. Photometric metallicities were computed based on the light curves and individual extinctions calculated from minimum light colours for each RRab star. Distances were obtained with typical errors ~7 per cent. The RR Lyrae survey simultaneously spans a large range of heliocentric distances 0.5<= R_hel(kpc)<=40 and heights above the plane -15<=z(kpc)<=+20, with well known completeness across the survey area, making it an ideal set for studying the struc ture of the Galactic thick disk.