A New Catalog of Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars in Our Galaxy

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive catalog of over 18,000 AGB stars in our Galaxy, analyzing their infrared properties, maser emissions, and variability, providing valuable data for understanding stellar evolution.

Contribution

It presents a new, extensive catalog of AGB stars with multi-wavelength identifications, infrared color analysis, and variability studies, enhancing previous datasets.

Findings

Infrared colors of Mira variables correlate with pulsation periods.

Theoretical dust shell models explain IR observations of AGB stars.

Identified 3710 stars with useful variability parameters from WISE data.

Abstract

We present a new catalog of 11,209 O-rich AGB stars and 7172 C-rich AGB stars in our Galaxy identifying more AGB stars in the bulge component and considering more visual carbon stars. For each object, we cross-identify the IRAS, AKARI, MSX, WISE, 2MASS, and AAVSO counterparts. We present the new catalog in two parts: one is based on the IRAS PSC for brighter or more isolated objects; the other one is based on the ALLWISE source catalog for less bright objects or objects in crowded regions. We present various infrared two-color diagrams (2CDs) for the sample stars. We find that the theoretical dust shell models can roughly explain the observations of AGB stars on the various IR 2CDs. We investigate IR properties of SiO and OH maser emission sources in the catalog. For Mira variables in the sample stars, we find that the IR colors get redder for longer pulsation periods. We also study infrared variability of the sample stars using the WISE photometric data in the last 12 yr: the ALLWISE multiepoch data and the Near-Earth Object WISE Reactivation (NEOWISE-R) 2021 data release. We generate light curves using the WISE data at W1 and W2 bands and compute the Lomb-Scargle periodograms for all of the sample stars. From the WISE light curves, we have found useful variation parameters for 3710 objects in the catalog, for which periods were either known or unknown in previous works.