The Taiwan-American occultation survey project stellar variability. I : Detection of low-amplitude δ Scuti stars
Author
Kim, D. -W.
Protopapas, P.
Alcock, C.
Wright, N.J.
Bianco, F.B.
Lehner, M.J.
Dave, R.
Byun, Y.-I.
Kyeong, J.
Lee, B.-C.
Axelrod, T.
Chen, W.-P.
Lin, H.-C.
Wang, J.-H.
Zhang, Z.-W.
Coehlo, N.K.
Rice, J.A.
Cook, K.H.
Marshall, S.L.
King, S.-K.
Lee, T.
Wang, S.-Y.
Wen, C.-Y.
Porrata, R.
Schwamb, M.E.
Attention
2299/10085
Abstract
We analyzed data accumulated during 2005 and 2006 by the Taiwan-American Occultation Survey (TAOS) in order to detect short-period variable stars (periods of ≲1 hr) such as δ Scuti. TAOS is designed for the detection of stellar occultation by small-size Kuiper Belt Objects and is operating four 50 cm telescopes at an effective cadence of 5 Hz. The four telescopes simultaneously monitor the same patch of the sky in order to reduce false positives. To detect short-period variables, we used the fast Fourier transform algorithm (FFT) in as much as the data points in TAOS light curves are evenly spaced. Using FFT, we found 41 short-period variables with amplitudes smaller than a few hundredths of a magnitude and periods of about an hour, which suggest that they are low-amplitude δ Scuti stars. The light curves of TAOS δ Scuti stars are accessible online at the Time Series Center Web site (http://timemachine.iic.harvard.edu).