10.2.2 Properties of the input data

Astrometry (see Chapter 4) provided fundamental parameters such as position and, where available, parallax, proper motion, and attributes derived from the parallax. Positions and proper motion, in addition to photometry, were used for a comprehensive cross-match of variable objects in the literature (Gavras et al. 2023) and the parallax, with associated uncertainty, provided key information for a general supervised classification and all of the specific object modules.

Photometry (see Chapter 5) covered 34 months, from 25 July 2014 to 28 May 2017, and represented the main input of variability processing in Gaia DR3. It contained time series in the $G$, $G_{\mathrm{BP}}$, and $G_{\mathrm{RP}}$ photometric bands. Although per-CCD data (in the $G$ band) were available for a subset of sources, they were used only by the short timescale variability module and they were excluded from publication in Gaia DR3. Photometric data sets for Gold, Silver, and Bronze sources, as defined in Section 5.4.1, were used.

RVS spectra (see Chapter 6) were not available for the variability processing for Gaia DR3. However, epoch radial velocities were used in the analyses for 2028 SOS Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars and published in the vari_rad_vel_statistics table.

Astrophysical parameters (see Chapter 11) were not used in the variability processing for Gaia DR3.

As described in Section 10.2.3, we selected sources with $\ge$5 FoV finite transit values in the $G$-band for our processing of the photometric time series.