A Catalogue of Mid-infrared Variable Sources from unTimely
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866915640424529920 |
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| author | kang, Zihan Zhang, Jingyi Zhang, Yanxia Li, Changhua Kong, Xiao Kong, Minzhi Shi, Jinghang Wei, Shirui Wu, Xue-Bing |
| author_facet | kang, Zihan Zhang, Jingyi Zhang, Yanxia Li, Changhua Kong, Xiao Kong, Minzhi Shi, Jinghang Wei, Shirui Wu, Xue-Bing |
| contents | The WISE and NEOWISE missions have provided the only mid-infrared all-sky time-domain data, opening a unique observational window for variability studies. Yet, a comprehensive and systematic catalog of mid-infrared variable sources has remained unavailable. In this work, we construct the first large-scale mid-infrared variability catalog based on the unTimely coadded photometry, covering tens of millions of sources. By employing a Bayesian Gaussian mixture model with a Dirichlet process, we identified 8,256,042 variable sources in the W1 band and 7,147,661 in the W2 band, significantly expanding the landscape of known mid-infrared variables. In addition to robust variability metrics, our analysis highlights rare and extreme outliers through dedicated outlier-detection algorithms, enabling the discovery of unusual classes of objects such as eruptive young stellar objects, highly variable active galactic nuclei, and other rare transients. This unprecedented dataset provides a new foundation for time-domain astronomy in the mid-infrared, offering complementary insights to optical and near-infrared surveys, and opening the door to systematic investigations of stellar evolution, accretion processes, and dust-enshrouded astrophysical environments on a Galactic and extragalactic scale. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_22071 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | A Catalogue of Mid-infrared Variable Sources from unTimely kang, Zihan Zhang, Jingyi Zhang, Yanxia Li, Changhua Kong, Xiao Kong, Minzhi Shi, Jinghang Wei, Shirui Wu, Xue-Bing Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies The WISE and NEOWISE missions have provided the only mid-infrared all-sky time-domain data, opening a unique observational window for variability studies. Yet, a comprehensive and systematic catalog of mid-infrared variable sources has remained unavailable. In this work, we construct the first large-scale mid-infrared variability catalog based on the unTimely coadded photometry, covering tens of millions of sources. By employing a Bayesian Gaussian mixture model with a Dirichlet process, we identified 8,256,042 variable sources in the W1 band and 7,147,661 in the W2 band, significantly expanding the landscape of known mid-infrared variables. In addition to robust variability metrics, our analysis highlights rare and extreme outliers through dedicated outlier-detection algorithms, enabling the discovery of unusual classes of objects such as eruptive young stellar objects, highly variable active galactic nuclei, and other rare transients. This unprecedented dataset provides a new foundation for time-domain astronomy in the mid-infrared, offering complementary insights to optical and near-infrared surveys, and opening the door to systematic investigations of stellar evolution, accretion processes, and dust-enshrouded astrophysical environments on a Galactic and extragalactic scale. |
| title | A Catalogue of Mid-infrared Variable Sources from unTimely |
| topic | Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.22071 |