SPITZER SAGE INFRARED PHOTOMETRY OF MASSIVE STARS IN THE LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD

By Alceste Z. Bonanos, D. Massa, M. Sewiło, D. Lennon, N. Panagia, Linda J. Smith, M. Meixner, B. Babler, S. Bracker, M. Meade and 4 more. 2009

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We present a catalog of 1750 massive stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), with accurate spectral types compiled from the literature, and a photometric catalog for a subset of 1268 of these stars, with the goal of exploring their infrared properties. The photometric catalog consists of stars with infrared counterparts in the Spitzer SAGE survey database, for which we present uniform photometry from 0.3 to 24 μm in the UBVIJHKs+IRAC+MIPS24 bands. The resulting infrared color–magnitude diagrams illustrate that the supergiant B[e], red supergiant, and luminous blue variable (LBV) stars are among the brightest infrared point sources in the LMC, due to their intrinsic brightness, and at longer wavelengths, due to dust. We detect infrared excesses due to free–free emission among ∼900 OB stars, which correlate with luminosity class. We confirm the presence of dust around 10 supergiant B[e] stars, finding the shape of their spectral energy distributions (SEDs) to be very similar, in contrast to the variety of SED shapes among the spectrally variable LBVs. The similar luminosities of B[e] supergiants (log L/L☉ ⩾ 4) and the rare, dusty progenitors of the new class of optical transients (e.g., SN 2008S and NGC 300 OT), plus the fact that dust is present in both types of objects, suggests a common origin for them. We find the infrared colors for Wolf–Rayet stars to be independent of spectral type and their SEDs to be flatter than what models predict. The results of this study provide the first comprehensive roadmap for interpreting luminous, massive, resolved stellar populations in nearby galaxies at infrared wavelengths.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4ed4ed6de58295aee2bfedbcbc213bb9548156d8

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. M. Galametz
2. W. Hamann
3. N. Smith
4. H. Todt
5. F. Galliano
6. S. Madden
7. K. Gordon
8. B. Whitney

In Instrumentation

1. W. Hamann
2. H. Todt
3. A. Liermann
4. M. Galametz
5. N. Smith
6. Robert A. Gruendl
7. Y. Chu
8. G. Gräfener

Citations in the corpus

• The SAGE-Spec Spitzer Legacy Program: The Life Cycle of Dust and Gas in the Large Magellanic Cloud (2010, background): “As noted by Bonanos et al. (2009), massive stars are amongst the brightest sources at 3.6 µm and occupy distinct regions in the [3.6] versus J − [3.6] CMD. Fig.”
• WATCHDOG: A COMPREHENSIVE ALL-SKY DATABASE OF GALACTIC BLACK HOLE X-RAY BINARIES (2015, unknown): “…therein ,[6] Elvis et al. (1975), [7] Ebisawa et al. (2003), [8] Kaluzienski et al. (1975), [9]Pounds (1974), [10] Eyles et al. (1975), [11] Bonanos et al. (2009), [12] Leong et al. (1971), [13] Cutri et al. (2003), [14] Matilsky et al. (1972), [15] Jones et al. (1976), [16] Tomsick et…”
• Luminous blue variables are antisocial: their isolation implies that they are kicked mass gainers in binary evolution (2014, methodology): “We used the positions for the 12 sgB[e] stars known in the LMC (Bonanos et al. 2009; Zickgraf 2006), and their separations to the nearest and second nearest O-type stars are shown along with the other types of stars in Figures 4 and 5.”
• The Wolf-Rayet stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud - A comprehensive analysis of the WN class (2014, methodology): “These different results arise from the too high temperature assumed by Bonanos et al. (2009) for this WN10 star.”
• HIGH- AND INTERMEDIATE-MASS YOUNG STELLAR OBJECTS IN THE LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD (2009, background): “Examples of known LMC objects in similar CMDs have been presented for massive stars (Bonanos et al. 2009) and AGB stars (Blum et al. 2006).”
• Classical Be stars (2013, methodology): “Further candidate catalogs were obtained by McSwain and Gies (2005), Bonanos et al. (2009, 2010), Wisniewski and Bjorkman (2006), Wisniewski et al. (2007a), using optical or infrared photometry and/or polarimetry.”
• SURVEYING THE AGENTS OF GALAXY EVOLUTION IN THE TIDALLY STRIPPED, LOW METALLICITY SMALL MAGELLANIC CLOUD (SAGE-SMC). II. COOL EVOLVED STARS (2011, background): “G supergiants also appears (cf. Bonanos et al. 2009, 2010), along with a population of faint sources (M3.”