Variable stars towards the bulge of M 31: The AGAPE catalogue
/ Authors
R. Ansari, M. Aurière, P. Baillon, A. Bouquet, G. Coupinot, C. Coutures, C. Ghesquière, Y. Giraud-Héraud, D. Gillieron, P. Gondolo
and 16 more authors
J. Hecquet, J. Kaplan, A. Kim, Y. -. Du, A. Melchior, M. Moniez, J. Picat, G. S. LAL-Orsay, LATTOMP-Tarbes, Cern, P. France, Ceadapniaspp, U. Utah, LATTOMP-Toulouse, LBL-Berkeley, LERMA-Paris
/ Abstract
We present the AGAPE astrometric and photometric catalogue of 1579 variable stars in a 14'x10' field centred on M31. This work is the first survey devoted to variable stars in the bulge of M31. The R magnitudes of the objects and the B-R colours suggest that our sample is dominated by red long-period variable stars (LPV), with a possible overlap with Cepheid-like type II stars. Twelve nova candidates are identified. Correlations with other catalogues suggest that 2 novae could be recurrent novae and provide possible optical counterparts for 2 supersoft X-ray sources candidates observed with Chandra.
Journal: Astronomy and Astrophysics