Bibcode
                                    
                            Surot, F.; Valenti, E.; Hidalgo, S. L.; Zoccali, M.; Gonzalez, O. A.; Sökmen, E.; Minniti, D.; Rejkuba, M.; Lucas, P. W.
    Bibliographical reference
                                    Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 629, id.A1, 14 pp.
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                        9
            
                        2019
            
  Journal
                                    
                            Citations
                                    27
                            Refereed citations
                                    26
                            Description
                                    Context. The bulge represents the best compromise between old and
massive Galactic components, and as such its study is a valuable
opportunity to understand how the bulk of the Milky Way formed and
evolved. In addition, being the only bulge in which we can individually
resolve stars in all evolutionary sequences, the properties of its
stellar content provide crucial insights into the formation of bulges.
 Aims: We are providing a detailed and comprehensive census of the
Milky Way bulge stellar populations by producing deep and accurate
photometric catalogs of the inner ˜300 deg2 of the
Galaxy.  Methods: We performed DAOPHOT/ALLFRAME point spread
function (PSF) fitting photometry of multi-epochs J and Ks
images provided by the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea
(VVV) survey to obtain deep photometric catalogs. Artificial star
experiments have been conducted on all images to properly assess the
completeness and the accuracy of the photometric measurements. 
Results: We present a photometric database containing nearly 600 million
stars across the bulge area surveyed by the VVV. Through the comparison
of derived color-magnitude diagrams of selected fields representative of
different levels of extinction and crowding, we show the quality,
completeness and depth of the new catalogs. With the exception of the
fields located along the plane, this new photometry samples stars down
to ˜1-2 mag below the old main sequence turnoff with unprecedented
accuracy. To demonstrate the tremendous potential inherent to this new
dataset, we give a few examples of possible applications, including (i)
star count studies through the dataset completeness map; (ii) surface
brightness map; and (iii) cross-correlation with Gaia DR2. 
Conclusions: The database presented here represents an invaluable
collection for the whole community, and we encourage its exploitation.
The photometric catalogs including completeness information are publicly
available through the ESO Science Archive as part of the MW-BULGE-PSPHOT
release.
Full Table A.1 is available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr
(ftp://130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/629/A1Based
on observations made with the VISTA telescope at the La Silla Paranal
Observatory, under the ESO programme ID 179.B-2002.
                            Related projects
                 
Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies
            
    The general aim of the project is to research the structure, evolutionary history and formation of galaxies through the study of their resolved stellar populations, both from photometry and spectroscopy. The group research concentrates in the most nearby objects, namely the Local Group galaxies including the Milky Way and M33 under the hypothesis
            
            Martín
            
                        López Corredoira