Photometry of masing and nonmasing OH/IR stars

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

27

Infrared Photometry, Infrared Stars, Interstellar Masers, Water Masers, Infrared Astronomy Satellite, Interstellar Extinction, Stellar Color, Stellar Luminosity, Stellar Spectrophotometry

Scientific paper

Broadband infrared photometry performed on a sample of 60 stars with IRAS colors in the range displayed by Type II OH/IR stars is reported. All of the stars have been tested for 1612 MHz OH maser emission by Eder, Lewis, and Terzian (1988), but emission has been detected in only 27 of them. A morphological comparison is made between the masing and nonmasing groups to discern whether masering is correlated with near- and middle-infrared properties. Both groups have the same scale height perpendicular to the galactic plane and share many characteristics in common with the local Mira population. Where the IRAS colors of the two groups overlap significantly, no statistically significant difference in the K - L color distribution is found. Using theoretical models relating this color and the strength of the 9.7 micron silicate feature to the optical depth of the circumstellar dust shell, it is found that red giant dust shells need a minimum optical depth of tau(9.7) about 0.1 to support maser emission. Stars with a silicate feature in absorption only occur at low galactic latitudes, whereas stars with the feature in emission are found at all latitudes. It is concluded that interstellar extinction is partly responsible for this effect.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Photometry of masing and nonmasing OH/IR stars does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Photometry of masing and nonmasing OH/IR stars, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Photometry of masing and nonmasing OH/IR stars will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1379715

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.