Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) Catalog of Periodic Variable Stars

TL;DR

This paper presents the first all-sky mid-infrared variable star catalog from WISE data, discovering over 50,000 variables including many new types, and establishing a classification method based on light curves.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive mid-infrared variable star catalog with a novel classification approach and a large number of newly identified variables, enhancing Galactic and stellar evolution studies.

Findings

Discovered 50,282 periodic variables, 69% of which are new.

Developed a classification method using mid-infrared light curves.

Achieved high agreement with existing catalogs in classification accuracy.

Abstract

We have compiled the first all-sky mid-infrared variable-star catalog based on Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) five-year survey data. Requiring more than 100 detections for a given object, 50,282 carefully and robustly selected periodic variables are discovered, of which 34,769 (69%) are new. Most are located in the Galactic plane and near the equatorial poles. A method to classify variables based on their mid-infrared light curves is established using known variable types in the General Catalog of Variable Stars. Careful classification of the new variables results in a tally of 21,427 new EW-type eclipsing binaries, 5654 EA-type eclipsing binaries, 1312 Cepheids, and 1231 RR Lyraes. By comparison with known variables available in the literature, we estimate that the misclassification rate is 5% and 10% for short- and long-period variables, respectively. A detailed comparison of the types, periods, and amplitudes with variables in the Catalina catalog shows that the independently obtained classifications parameters are in excellent agreement. This enlarged sample of variable stars will not only be helpful to study Galactic structure and extinction properties, they can also be used to constrain stellar evolution theory and as potential candidates for the James Webb Space Telescope.