Cepheids from VVV in the southern Galactic midplane

Large time-domain photometric surveys operating in the near-infrared hold great potential for the exploration of these vast uncharted areas of our Galaxy. We conducted a census of distant classical and type II Cepheids along the southern Galactic midplane using near-infrared photometry from the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea survey.

We performed a machine-learned classification of the Cepheids based on their infrared light curves using a convolutional neural network. We have discovered 640 distant classical Cepheids with up to ~40mag of visual extinction and over 500 type II Cepheids, most of them located in the inner bulge. Intrinsic color indices of individual Cepheids were predicted from sparse photometric data using a neural network, allowing their use as accurate reddening tracers.