10.1.2 Data products in Gaia DR3

Variability products in Gaia DR3 contributed to the following:

• •

  In the gaia_source table (Section 20.1.1), the field phot_variable_flag is set to ‘VARIABLE’ when a source appears in any of the vari_* tables, except for the vari_summary table (which includes also non-variable sources that appear in GAPS), otherwise it is set to ‘NOT_AVAILABLE’.

• •

  The photometric time series for all Gaia sources in GAPS, located within a 5.5${}^{\circ }$ radius centred on the Andromeda galaxy. The approximately 1.3 million sources in this survey are identified in the gaia_source table when the field in_andromeda_survey is set to ‘true’ and their time-series statistics are available in the vari_summary table. See Evans et al. (2023) for more details.

• •

  The vari_summary table (Section 20.13.1) lists statistical parameters for all variable sources and all sources in GAPS. Additionally, it provides a series of boolean flags for the occurrence in other vari_* tables:

  • –

    in_vari_agn,

  • –

    in_vari_cepheid,

  • –

    in_vari_classification_result,

  • –

    in_vari_compact_companion,

  • –

    in_vari_eclipsing_binary,

  • –

    in_vari_long_period_variable,

  • –

    in_vari_microlensing,

  • –

    in_vari_ms_oscillator,

  • –

    in_vari_planetary_transit,

  • –

    in_vari_rotation_modulation,

  • –

    in_vari_rrlyrae,

  • –

    in_vari_short_timescale.

• •

  Classification results in the vari_classifier_result table (Section 20.13.2) are represented by the fields best_class_name and best_class_score. Details of the 24 classes published in Gaia DR3 are provided in the vari_classifier_class_definition table (Section 20.13.4), while the vari_classifier_definition table (Section 20.13.3) provides a concise description of the classification used in DR3. For more information, see Section 10.3.

• •

  Specific object studies (SOS) for the following variability types:

  • –

    active galactic nuclei (Section 10.4) in table vari_agn,

  • –

    Cepheids candidates (Section 10.5) in table vari_cepheid,

  • –

    compact companion candidates (Section 10.6) in table vari_compact_companion,

  • –

    eclipsing binary candidates (Section 10.7) in table vari_eclipsing_binary,

  • –

    long period variables (Section 10.8) in table vari_long_period_variable,

  • –

    microlensing candidates (Section 10.9) in table vari_microlensing,

  • –

    planetary transit candidates (Section 10.10) in table vari_planetary_transit,

  • –

    RR Lyrae stars (Section 10.11) in table vari_rrlyrae,

  • –

    short-timescale variability (Section 10.12) in table vari_short_timescale,

  • –

    solar-like rotational modulation candidates (Section 10.13) in the vari_rotation_modulation table,

  • –

    upper main-sequence oscillators (Section 10.14) in table vari_ms_oscillator.

• •

  The time series in $G$, $G_{\mathrm{BP}}$, and $G_{\mathrm{RP}}$ bands of all sources listed in the vari_summary table are available as light curve data through the datalink interface.

• •

  The time series of radial velocities for a subset of 1898 RR Lyrae stars and Cepheids are provided in the vari_epoch_radial_velocity table and their statistical parameters are published in the vari_rad_vel_statistics table.

• •

  Classification of 2.5 million galaxies with vari_best_class_score in the galaxy_candidates table, identified by setting the vari_best_class_name field equal to ‘GALAXY’. They were removed from the other ‘vari’ tables (most notably from vari_classifier_result) because their apparent variability in the Gaia data was mostly due to their extended shape rather than intrinsic variability within the galaxies themselves.

• •

  Classification of one million AGNs in the qso_candidates table, identified by the field vari_best_class_name equal to ‘AGN’. Some fields from vari_classifier_result and vari_agn are repeated there for convenience, while the vari_agn_membership_score field (from the SOS module of AGN) is available exclusively in the qso_candidates table.

The analysis was performed with automated methods and the published sources should be considered as candidates of variability or of specific variability types.