Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userExploring the Time Domain with the Palomar-QUEST Sky Survey
96
0
0.0
(
0
)
Authors
A. Mahabal
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
Exploration of the time variability on the sky over a broad range of flux levels and wavelengths is rapidly becoming a new frontier of astronomical research. We describe here briefly the Palomar-QUEST survey being carried out from the Samuel Oschin 48-inch Schmidt telescope at Palomar. The following features make the survey an attractive candidate for studying time variability: anticipated survey area of 12,000 - 15,000 sq. degrees in the drift scan mode, point source depth of 21st mag. in I under good conditions, near simultaneous observations in four filters, and at least four passes per year at each location covered. The survey will yield a large number of transients and highly variable sources in the near future and in that sense is a prototype of LSST and Pan-STARRS. We briefly outline our strategy for searching such objects and the proposed pipeline for detecting transients in real-time.
rate research
Read More
We study the ensemble optical variability of 276 FSRQs and 86 BL Lacs in the Palomar-QUEST Survey with the goal of searching for common fluctuation properties, examining the range of behavior across the sample, and characterizing the appearance of blazars in such a survey so that future work can more easily identify such objects. The survey, which covers 15,000 square degrees multiple times over 3.5 years, allows for the first ensemble blazar study of this scale. Variability amplitude distributions are shown for the FSRQ and BL Lac samples for numerous time lags, and also studied through structure function analyses. Individual blazars show a wide range of variability amplitudes, timescales, and duty cycles. Of the best sampled objects, 35% are seen to vary by more than 0.4 magnitudes; for these, the fraction of measurements contributing to the high amplitude variability ranges constantly from about 5% to 80%. Blazar variability has some similarities to that of type I quasars but includes larger amplitude fluctuations on all timescales. FSRQ variability amplitudes are particularly similar to those of QSOs on timescales of several months, suggesting significant contributions from the accretion disk to the variable flux at these timescales. Optical variability amplitudes are correlated with the maximum apparent velocities of the radio jet for the subset of FSRQs with MOJAVE VLBA measurements, implying that the optically variable fluxs strength is typically related to that of the radio emission. We also study CRATES radio-selected FSRQ candidates, which show similar variability characteristics to known FSRQs; this suggests a high purity for the CRATES sample.
We quantify the variability of faint unresolved optical sources using a catalog based on multiple SDSS imaging observations. The catalog covers SDSS Stripe 82, and contains 58 million photometric observations in the SDSS ugriz system for 1.4 million unresolved sources. In each photometric bandpass we compute various low-order lightcurve statistics and use them to select and study variable sources. We find that 2% of unresolved optical sources brighter than g=20.5 appear variable at the 0.05 mag level (rms) simultaneously in the g and r bands. The majority (2/3) of these variable sources are low-redshift (<2) quasars, although they represent only 2% of all sources in the adopted flux-limited sample. We find that at least 90% of quasars are variable at the 0.03 mag level (rms) and confirm that variability is as good a method for finding low-redshift quasars as is the UV excess color selection (at high Galactic latitudes). We analyze the distribution of lightcurve skewness for quasars and find that is centered on zero. We find that about 1/4 of the variable stars are RR Lyrae stars, and that only 0.5% of stars from the main stellar locus are variable at the 0.05 mag level. The distribution of lightcurve skewness in the g-r vs. u-g color-color diagram on the main stellar locus is found to be bimodal (with one mode consistent with Algol-like behavior). Using over six hundred RR Lyrae stars, we demonstrate rich halo substructure out to distances of 100 kpc. We extrapolate these results to expected performance by the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and estimate that it will obtain well-sampled 2% accurate, multi-color lightcurves for ~2 million low-redshift quasars, and will discover at least 50 million variable stars.
The advent of wide-area multicolour synoptic sky surveys is leading to data sets unprecedented in size, complexity and data throughput. VO technology offers a way to exploit these to the full but requires changes in design philosophy. The Palomar-QUEST survey is a major new survey being undertaken by Caltech, Yale, JPL and Indiana University to repeatedly observe 1/3 of the sky (~15000 sq. deg. between -27 < Dec <27 in seven passbands. Utilising the 48-inch Oschin Schmidt Telescope at the Palomar Observatory with the 112-CCD QUEST camera covering the full 4 x 4 sq. deg. field of view, it will generate ~1TB of data per month. In this paper, we review the design of QUEST as a VO resource, a federated data set and an exemplar of VO standards.
The Time-Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS) is an SDSS-IV eBOSS subproject primarily aimed at obtaining identification spectra of ~220,000 optically-variable objects systematically selected from SDSS/Pan-STARRS1 multi-epoch imaging. We present a preview of the science enabled by TDSS, based on TDSS spectra taken over ~320 deg^2 of sky as part of the SEQUELS survey in SDSS-III, which is in part a pilot survey for eBOSS in SDSS-IV. Using the 15,746 TDSS-selected single-epoch spectra of photometrically variable objects in SEQUELS, we determine the demographics of our variability-selected sample, and investigate the unique spectral characteristics inherent in samples selected by variability. We show that variability-based selection of quasars complements color-based selection by selecting additional redder quasars, and mitigates redshift biases to produce a smooth quasar redshift distribution over a wide range of redshifts. The resulting quasar sample contains systematically higher fractions of blazars and broad absorption line quasars than from color-selected samples. Similarly, we show that M-dwarfs in the TDSS-selected stellar sample have systematically higher chromospheric active fractions than the underlying M-dwarf population, based on their H-alpha emission. TDSS also contains a large number of RR Lyrae and eclipsing binary stars with main-sequence colors, including a few composite-spectrum binaries. Finally, our visual inspection of TDSS spectra uncovers a significant number of peculiar spectra, and we highlight a few cases of these interesting objects. With a factor of ~15 more spectra, the main TDSS survey in SDSS-IV will leverage the lessons learned from these early results for a variety of time-domain science applications.
We identify 3,113 highly variable objects in 7,200 square degrees of the Palomar-QUEST Survey, which each varied by more than 0.4 magnitudes simultaneously in two broadband optical filters on timescales from hours to roughly 3.5 years. The primary goal of the selection is to find blazars by their well-known violent optical variability. Because most known blazars have been found in radio and/or X-ray wavelengths, a sample discovered through optical variability may have very different selection effects, elucidating the range of behavior possible in these systems. A set of blazars selected in this unusual manner will improve our understanding of the physics behind this extremely variable and diverse class of AGN. The object positions, variability statistics, and color information are available using the Palomar-QUEST CasJobs server. The time domain is just beginning to be explored over large sky areas; we do not know exactly what a violently variable sample will hold. About 20% of the sample has been classified in the literature; over 70% of those objects are known or likely AGN. The remainder largely consists of a variety of variable stars, including a number of RR Lyrae and cataclysmic variables.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
