High-cadence stellar variability studies of RR Lyrae stars with DECam: New multiband templates

¹ Instituto de Astrofísica, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860, 7820436 Macul, Santiago, Chile
² Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, Nuncio Monseñor Sótero Sanz 100, Providencia, Santiago, Chile
³ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma Tor Vergata, Via della Ricerca Scientifica, 1, Roma 00133, Italy
⁴ Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Università di Roma, P.le A. Moro 5, Roma 00185, Italy
⁵ INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, via Frascati 33, 00078 Monte Porzio Catone, Italy
⁶ School of Science, University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
⁷ Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 366 Bloomberg Center, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
⁹ Department of Physics, University of Patras, 26500 Patra, Greece
¹⁰ International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab, 670 N. A’ohoku Place, Hilo, Hawai’i, 96720, USA
¹¹ Departamento de Física, FACI, Universidad de Tarapacá, Casilla 7D, Arica, Chile
¹² Instituto de Astronomía y Ciencias Planetarias, Universidad de Atacama, Copayapu 485, Copiapó Chile
¹³ University of Delaware, Department of Physics and Astronomy, 217 Sharp Lab, Newark, DE 19716, USA
¹⁴ University of Delaware, Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration, 184 Academy Street, Newark, DE 19716, USA
¹⁵ University of Delaware, Data Science Institute, Newark, DE 19716, USA
¹⁶ Vera C. Rubin Observatory, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA

^★ Corresponding author; karina.baezavillagra@students.uniroma2.eu

Received: 22 November 2024
Accepted: 2 January 2025

Abstract

We present the most extensive set to date of high-quality RR Lyrae light curve templates in the ɡriz bands, based on time-series observations of the Dark Energy Camera Plane Survey (DECaPS) East field, located in the Galactic bulge at coordinates (RA, Dec)(J2000) = (18:03:34, −29:32:02), obtained with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the 4-m Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). Our templates, which cover both fundamental-mode (RRab) and first-overtone (RRc) pulsators, can be especially useful when there is insufficient data for accurately calculating the average magnitudes and colors, hence distances, as well as to inform multiband light curve classifiers, as will be required in the case of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). In this paper, we describe in detail the procedures that were adopted in producing these templates, including a novel approach to account for the presence of outliers in photometry. Our final sample comprises 136 RRab and 144 RRc templates, all of which are publicly available. Lastly, in this paper we study the inferred Fourier parameters and other light curve descriptors, including rise time, skewness, and kurtosis, as well as their correlations with the pulsation mode, period, and effective wavelength.