Variability Properties of Four Million Sources in the TESS Input Catalog Observed with the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope Survey

Ryan J. Oelkers, Joseph E. Rodriguez, Keivan G. Stassun, Joshua Pepper, Garrett Somers, Stella Kafka, Daniel J. Stevens, Thomas G. Beatty, Robert J. Siverd, Michael B. Lund, Rudolf B. Kuhn, David James, B. Scott Gaudi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

82 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) has been surveying more than 70% of the celestial sphere for nearly a decade. While the primary science goal of the survey is the discovery of transiting, large-radii planets around bright host stars, the survey has collected more than 106 images, with a typical cadence between 10-30 minutes, for more than four million sources with apparent visual magnitudes in the approximate range . Here, we provide a catalog of 52,741 objects showing significant large-amplitude fluctuations likely caused by stellar variability, as well as 62,229 objects identified with likely stellar rotation periods. The detected variability ranges in rms-amplitude from ∼3 mmag to ∼2.3 mag, and the detected periods range from ∼0.1 to gap2000 days. We provide variability upper limits for all other ∼4,000,000 sources. These upper limits are principally a function of stellar brightness, but we achieve typical 1σ sensitivity on 30 min timescales down to ∼5 mmag at , and down to ∼43 mmag at . We have matched our catalog to the TESS Input catalog and the AAVSO Variable Star Index to precipitate the follow-up and classification of each source. The catalog is maintained as a living database on the Filtergraph visualization portal at the URL https://filtergraph.com/kelt-vars.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number39
JournalAstronomical Journal
Volume155
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2018

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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