摘要：Context. The VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) is a near-IR
time-domain survey of the Galactic bulge and southern plane. One of the main goals of this
survey is to reveal the 3D structure of the Milky Way through their variable stars. In
particular, enormous numbers of RR Lyrae stars have been discovered in the inner regions
of the bulge (−8° ≲
b ≲ −1°) by optical surveys such as OGLE
and MACHO, but leaving an unexplored window of more than ~47 sq deg (−10.0° ≲ ℓ ≲ +
10.7° and −
10.3° ≲ b ≲ −8.0°) observed
by the VVV Survey.
Aims. Our goal is to characterize the RR Lyrae stars in the outer bulge
in terms of their periods, amplitudes, Fourier coefficients, and distances in order to
evaluate the 3D structure of the bulge in this area. The distance distribution of RR Lyrae
stars will be compared to that of red clump stars, which is known to trace a X-shaped
structure, in order to determine whether these two different stellar populations share the
same Galactic distribution.
Methods. A search for RR Lyrae stars was performed in more than
~47 sq deg at low Galactic
latitudes (−10.3° ≲
b ≲ −8.0°). In the procedure the
χ2 value and analysis of variance (AoV)
statistic methods were used to determine the variability and periodic features of the
light curves, respectively. To prevent misclassifications, the analysis was performed only
on the fundamental mode RR Lyrae stars (RRab) owing to similarities found in the near-IR
light curve shapes of contact eclipsing binaries (W UMa) and first overtone RR Lyrae stars
(RRc). On the other hand, the red clump stars of the same analyzed tiles were selected,
and cuts in the color-magnitude diagram were applied and the maximum distance restricted
to ~20 kpc in order to
construct a similar catalog in terms of distances and covered area compared to the RR
Lyrae stars.
Results. We report the detection of more than 1000 RR Lyrae ab-type
stars in the VVV Survey located in the outskirts of the Galactic bulge. A few of them are
possibly associated with the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy. We calculated colours,
reddening, extinction, and distances of the detected RR Lyrae stars in order to determine
the outer bulge 3D structure. Our main result is that, at the low galactic latitudes
mapped here, the RR Lyrae stars trace a centrally concentrated spheroidal distribution.
This is a noticeably different spatial distribution to the one traced by red clump stars
known to follow a bar and X-shaped structure. We estimate the completeness of our sample
at 80% for Ks ≤
15 mag.
