Discovery of five new Galactic symbiotic stars in the VPHAS+ survey

TL;DR

This paper validates a new infrared selection method for discovering symbiotic stars, leading to the identification of five new Galactic SySts in the VPHAS+ survey, demonstrating improved detection efficiency.

Contribution

The study introduces and validates a new infrared selection criterion for symbiotic stars, enhancing detection accuracy and efficiency in large surveys.

Findings

Five new Galactic symbiotic stars identified.

The new criterion reduces contamination in candidate selection.

All discovered stars are classified as S-type symbiotic stars.

Abstract

We report the validation of a recently proposed infrared selection criterion for symbiotic stars (SySts). Spectroscopic data were obtained for seven candidates, selected from the SySt candidates of Akras et al. (2019, MNRAS, 483, 5077) by employing the new supplementary infrared selection criterion for SySts in the VST/OmegaCAM Photometric H-Alpha Survey (VPHAS+). Five of them turned out to be genuine SySts after the detection of H$\alpha$, He II and [O III] emission lines as well as TiO molecular bands. The characteristic O VI Raman-scattered line is also detected in one of these SySts. According to their infrared colours and optical spectra, all five newly discovered SySts are classified as S-type. The high rate of true SySts detections of this work demonstrates that the combination of the H$\alpha$-emission and the new infrared criterion improves the selection of target lists for follow-up observations by minimizing the number of contaminants and optimizing the observing time.