Mapping the Milky Way in the Near-IR: The Future of the VVV Survey

The VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) is an ESO public survey that has been mapping the bulge and inner disk of the Milky Way in the near infrared for the past 6 years. Here we examine the scientific goals and some key results, as well as the legacy of the VVV survey. We also discuss the making of the first huge public image of the Galactic bulge (a 140 Gigabytes single image with 25,000 Megapixels), and how these data allowed us to measure directly the total bulge mass of the Milky Way bulge, that is twenty billion Solar masses. Finally, we present the plans of the recently approved VVVX, an extended survey of the Milky Way, that would map about 4% of the sky repeatedly in the near-IR, measuring more than 2 billion stars, producing a ~1 Petabyte database (containing images, catalogues and maps) for the whole community to exploit.

[1]  M. Catelán,et al.  Discovery of VVV CL001 A low-mass globular cluster next to UKS 1 in the direction of the Galactic bulge , 2010, 1012.2450.

[2]  P. Lucas,et al.  One more neighbor: The first brown dwarf in the VVV survey , 2013, 1308.3216.

[3]  James P. Emerson,et al.  VISTA data flow system: overview , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[4]  J. C. Beamin,et al.  VVV high proper motion stars - I. The catalogue of bright KS ≤ 13.5 stars , 2016, 1609.03520.

[5]  J. C. Beamin,et al.  Discovery of a brown dwarf companion to the A3V star β Circini , 2015, 1509.09226.

[6]  M. Catelán,et al.  Mapping the outer bulge with RRab stars from the VVV Survey , 2016, 1604.01336.

[7]  Robert Mann,et al.  VISTA data flow system survey access and curation: the WFCAM science archive , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[8]  D. Minniti,et al.  Reddening and metallicity maps of the Milky Way bulge from VVV and 2MASS - III. The first global photometric metallicity map of the Galactic bulge , 2013, 1302.0243.

[9]  M. Catelán,et al.  VARIABLE STARS IN THE VVV GLOBULAR CLUSTERS. I. 2MASS-GC 02 AND TERZAN 10 , 2014, 1411.1696.

[10]  M. Schultheis,et al.  The Gaia-ESO Survey: metallicity and kinematic trends in the Milky Way bulge , 2014, 1408.4558.

[11]  P. Lucas,et al.  Hundreds of new cluster candidates in the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea survey DR1 , 2015, 1505.02764.

[12]  M. Schultheis,et al.  Reddening and metallicity maps of the Milky Way bulge from VVV and 2MASS II. The complete high resolution extinction map and implications for Galactic bulge studies , 2012, 1204.4004.

[13]  R. de Grijs,et al.  VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV): The public ESO near-IR variability survey of the Milky Way , 2009, 0912.1056.

[14]  M. Catelán,et al.  New Galactic star clusters discovered in the VVV survey , 2011, 1106.3045.

[15]  D. Minniti,et al.  DISCOVERY OF RR LYRAE STARS IN THE NUCLEAR BULGE OF THE MILKY WAY , 2016, 1610.04689.

[16]  D. Minniti,et al.  MAPPING THE X-SHAPED MILKY WAY BULGE , 2011, 1107.5360.

[17]  E. Marchetti,et al.  Stellar density profile and mass of the Milky Way Bulge from VVV data , 2015, 1510.07425.

[18]  James P. Emerson,et al.  VISTA data flow system: pipeline processing for WFCAM and VISTA , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[19]  M. Catelán,et al.  Three Galactic globular cluster candidates , 2011, 1109.1854.

[20]  M. J. Wolff,et al.  First GLIMPSE Results on the Stellar Structure of the Galaxy , 2005 .

[21]  M. Catelán,et al.  New galactic star clusters discovered in the VVV survey. Candidates projected on the inner disk and bulge , 2014, Astronomy & Astrophysics.

[22]  P. Lucas,et al.  A population of eruptive variable protostars in VVV , 2016, 1602.06267.