J/ApJS/280/14 Period-luminosity relation of LPVs in LMC from ATLAS (Hey+, 2025)
The period-luminosity relation of long-period variables in the Large Magellanic
Cloud observed with ATLAS.
Hey D., Tonry J., Shappee B., Huber D.
<Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 280, 14 (2025)>
=2025ApJS..280...14H 2025ApJS..280...14H
ADC_Keywords: Asteroseismology; Magellanic Clouds; Photometry, infrared;
Optical; Stars, variable
Keywords: Asteroseismology ; Large Magellanic Cloud ; Photometry
Abstract:
Period-luminosity (PL) relations of long-period variables (LPVs) are a
powerful tool to map the distances of stars in our Galaxy, and are
typically calibrated using stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).
Recent results demonstrated that these relations show a strong
dependence on the amplitude of the variability, which can be used to
greatly improve distance estimates. However, one of the only highly
sampled catalogs of such variables in the LMC is based on Optical
Gravitational Lensing Experiment photometry, which does not provide
all-sky coverage. Here, we provide the first measurement of the PL
relation of LPVs in the LMC using photometry from the Asteroid
Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). We derive conversions
between ugriz, Gaia, and ATLAS c and o passbands with a precision of
∼0.02mag, which enable the measurement of reliable amplitudes with
ATLAS for crowded fields. We successfully reproduce the known PL
sequences A through E, and show evidence for sequence F using the
ratios of amplitudes observed in both ATLAS passbands. Our work
demonstrates that the ATLAS survey can recover variability in evolved
red giants and lays the foundation for an all-sky distance map of the
Milky Way using LPVs.
Description:
The initial step in our selection process involves extracting a
spatially defined sample from the Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3) catalog.
See Section 2.1.
We use the third OGLE data release catalog, which we crossmatch to
Gaia DR3, as well as the I-band light curves, which were used for
reporting amplitudes. See Section 2.2.
The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) incorporates
a robotic 0.5m f/2 Wright Schmidt telescope with a 5.4x5.4 degree
field of view and 1.86" pixel scale. The ATLAS project has been
comprehensively monitoring the night sky since 2017.
We use the ATLAS forced photometry light curves --differential flux
light curves calculated at predefined positions.
See Section 2.3.
To accurately measure the amplitude of stellar variability, it becomes
necessary to convert from a higher-resolution photometric system to
the ATLAS magnitude system, which utilizes two primary bands: orange
(o; 560-820nm) and cyan (c; 420-650nm).
See Section 3.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table3.dat 140 60017 Results of the prewhitening for the ATLAS light
curves
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See also:
II/246 : 2MASS All-Sky Catalog of Point Sources (Cutri+ 2003)
II/366 : ASAS-SN catalog of variable stars (Jayasinghe+, 2018-2020)
I/355 : Gaia DR3 Part 1. Main source (Gaia Collaboration, 2022)
I/358 : Gaia DR3 Part 4. Variability (Gaia Collaboration, 2022)
J/ApJ/552/289 : Semiregular variable stars in Baade's windows (Alard+, 2001)
J/MNRAS/349/1059 : OGLE variables in Galactic bar (Wray+, 2004)
J/MNRAS/399/2063 : LMC red giants in D sequence (Nicholls+, 2009)
J/AcA/59/239 : VI LCs of LMC long-period variables (Soszynski+, 2009)
J/MNRAS/400/1945 : Light curves of 261 nearby pulsating M giants (Tabur+, 2009)
J/AcA/61/217 : VI LCs of SMC long-period variables (Soszynski+, 2011)
J/AcA/63/21 : VI light curves of Galactic LPVs (Soszynski+, 2013)
J/A+A/583/A122 : Variability of CoRoT M-giant stars (Ferreira+, 2015)
J/ApJ/860/1 : Radial velocities of 20 EBs in LMC (Graczyk+, 2018)
J/AJ/156/241 : Variable stars measured by ATLAS (Heinze+, 2018)
J/ApJ/868/30 : OGLE LMC-T2CEP-211 EBs LCs and RVs (Pilecki+, 2018)
J/AcA/68/315 : OGLE Galactic Cepheids (Udalski+, 2018)
J/AJ/160/18 : M giant stars asteroseismology (Auge+, 2020)
J/MNRAS/493/1388 : Asteroseismology of red giants with Kepler (Yu+, 2020)
J/A+A/645/A69 : PRM catalogue of halo MS stars (Koppelman+, 2021)
J/A+A/649/A7 : MC structure and properties (Gaia Collaboration+, 2021)
J/AJ/161/74 : SMASH DR2. 197 SMASH fields (Nidever+, 2021)
J/A+A/656/A66 : Semi-regular red giants as indicators (Trabucchi+, 2021)
J/ApJS/264/20 : OGLE Mira var. stars with WISE & Spitzer (Iwanek+, 2023)
J/A+A/688/A93 : Sample of ∼60000 OBAF-type pulsators (Hey+, 2024)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table3.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 19 I19 --- Gaia Gaia DR3 identifier
21- 30 F10.6 deg RAdeg [52.49/110.4] Right Ascension (J2000)
32- 41 F10.6 deg DEdeg [-79.32/-59.8] Declination (J2000)
43 A1 --- Band Passband of the photometry (1)
45- 50 F6.3 mag Jmag [10.4/16.21] 2MASS PSC J band magnitude
52- 56 F5.3 mag e_Jmag [0.019/0.64]? Uncertainty in Jmag
58- 63 F6.3 mag Hmag [9.49/15.92] 2MASS PSC H band magnitude
65- 69 F5.3 mag e_Hmag [0.017/1.17]? Uncertainty in Hmag
71- 76 F6.3 mag Ksmag [9/14.81] 2MASS PSC Ks band magnitude
78- 82 F5.3 mag e_Ksmag [0.015/0.17]? Uncertainty in Ksmag
84- 89 F6.3 mag WJKs [7.7/14.01] Wesenheit index
(WJKs=Ks-0.686(J-Ks), equation 3
in Section 4.2)
91- 97 F7.2 d Per1 [-340.04/267] First measured period
99- 105 F7.2 d Per2 [-974/853.4]? Second measured period
107- 115 F9.2 d Per3 [-1109/787]? Third measured period
117- 124 F8.2 10-3 Amp1 [2.6/1971.1] Amplitude of Per1; in parts per
thousand
126- 132 F7.2 10-3 Amp2 [2.2/989]? Amplitude of Per2; in parts per
thousand
134- 140 F7.2 10-3 Amp3 [0.67/554.7]? Amplitude of Per3; in parts per
thousand
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Note (1): ATLAS passbands as follows:
o = orange (560-820nm; 44459 occurrences)
c = cyan (420-650nm; 15558 occurrences)
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 24-Mar-2026