A new candidate Luminous Blue Variable
Donald F. Figer, Francisco Najarro, Maria Messineo, J. Simon Clark,, and Karl M. Menten

TL;DR
This paper identifies IRAS 16115-5044 as a candidate luminous blue variable (LBV), based on its high luminosity, spectral features, and variability, suggesting it is a rare supergiant star with an initial mass of about 40 solar masses.
Contribution
The study reclassifies IRAS 16115-5044 as an LBV using new distance and extinction measurements, expanding the known population of Galactic LBVs.
Findings
IRAS 16115-5044 exhibits LBV-like spectral features and variability.
The star's luminosity exceeds that of typical post-AGB objects.
Estimated initial mass of the star is approximately 40 solar masses.
Abstract
We identify IRAS 16115-5044, which was previously classified as a protoplanetary nebula (PPN), as a candidate luminous blue variable (LBV). The star has high luminosity (>10 L_Sun), ensuring supergiant status, has a temperature similar to LBVs, is photometrically and spectroscopically variable, and is surrounded by warm dust. Its near-infrared spectrum shows the presence of several lines of HI, He I, Fe II, Fe [II], MgII, and Na I with shapes ranging from pure absorption and P Cygni profiles to full emission. These characteristics are often observed together in the relatively rare LBV class of stars, of which only 20 are known in the Galaxy. The key to the new classification is the fact that we compute a new distance and extinction that yields a luminosity significantly in excess of those for post-AGB PPNe, for which the initial masses are <8 M_Sun. Assuming single…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
