The VMC Survey - XX. Identification of new Cepheids in the Small Magellanic Cloud

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of 288 new Cepheids in the Small Magellanic Cloud using near-infrared VISTA survey data, expanding the catalog of variable stars in this galaxy.

Contribution

It introduces a new method for identifying Cepheids in the SMC using multi-epoch near-infrared photometry and applies it to find previously unreported variables.

Findings

Discovered 288 new Cepheids in the SMC

Cepheids have periods from 0.34 to 9.1 days

Cover a magnitude range of 12.9 to 17.6 in Ks-band

Abstract

We present Ks -band light curves for 299 Cepheids in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) of which 288 are new discoveries that we have identified using multi-epoch near-infrared photometry obtained by the VISTA survey of the Magellanic Clouds system (VMC). The new Cepheids have periods in the range from 0.34 to 9.1 days and cover the magnitude interval 12.9 <= Ks <= 17.6 mag. Our method was developed using variable stars previously identified by the optical microlensing survey OGLE. We focus on searching new Cepheids in external regions of the SMC for which complete VMC Ks-band observations are available and no comprehensive identification of different types of variable stars from other surveys exists yet.