Variable stars in Galactic open clusters

The European Space Agency's Gaia mission has revolutionized the census of star clusters in the Milky Way while simultaneously providing an unprecedented homogeneous all-sky catalog of variable stars.

Here, we leverage the third Gaia data release (GDR3) to obtain an empirical birds-eye view of stellar evolution based on 34760 variable stars residing in 1192 Galactic open clusters (OCs) with a total of 173294 members (variable member fraction 20.0%). Using precise OC distances, de-reddened magnitudes, and consistently determined ages, we a) pinpoint regions of pulsational instability across the color-absolute magnitude diagram (CaMD), b) trace the occurrence rate of variables as a function of age, and c) consider the temporal evolution of rotation periods and photometric activity (gyrochronology).