Free access article

A&A 374, 968-979 (2001)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20010764

Long period variable stars: galactic populations and infrared luminosity calibrations

M. O. Mennessier¹, N. Mowlavi², R. Alvarez³ and X. Luri<sup>4

1</sup>  Université de Montpellier II and CNRS, GRAAL, cc072, 34095 Montpellier Cedex 5, France
²  Observatoire de Genève, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland
³  Institut d'Astronomie et d'Astrophysique, Université Libre de Bruxelles, CP 226, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium
⁴  Departament d'Astronomia i Meteorologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Avda. Diagonal 647, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

(Received 21 December 2000 / Accepted 16 May 2001)

Abstract
In this paper HIPPARCOS astrometric and kinematic data are used to calibrate both infrared luminosities and kinematical parameters of Long Period Variable stars (LPVs). Individual absolute K and IRAS 12 and 25 luminosities of 800 LPVs are determined and made available in electronic form. The estimated mean kinematics is analyzed in terms of galactic populations. LPVs are found to belong to galactic populations ranging from the thin disk to the extended disk. An age range and a lower limit of the initial mass is given for stars of each population. A difference of 1.3 mag in K for the upper limit of the Asymptotic Giant Branch is found between the disk and old disk galactic populations, confirming its dependence on the mass in the main sequence. LPVs with a thin envelope are distinguished using the estimated mean IRAS luminosities. The level of attraction (in the classification sense) of each group for the usual classifying parameters of LPVs (variability and spectral types) is examined.

Key words: stars: absolute magnitude -- variable stars -- kinematics -- galactic populations -- AGB

Offprint request: M. O. Mennessier, Marie-Odile.Mennessier@graal.univ-montp2.fr

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