SiO v = 1 and v = 2, J = 1–0 maser variability in evolved stars. Eleven years of short spaced monitoring^*

¹ Departamento de Astrofísica Molecular e Infrarroja, Instituto de Estructura de la Materia, CSIC, Serrano 121, 28006 Madrid, Spain e-mail: pardo@damir.iem.csic.es
² Observatorio Astronómico Nacional, Apartado 1143, 28800 Alcalá de Henares, Spain e-mail: [j.alcolea;v.bujarrabal;f.colomer;p.devicente]@oan.es
³ Departamento de Física, Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, Campus Universitario, 28871 Alcalá de Henares, Spain e-mail: armando.delromero@uah.es

Received: 20 February 2004
Accepted: 7 May 2004

Abstract

This paper presents and discusses the final data set of a long-term and short-spaced monitoring of 21 SiO maser sources, mostly evolved stars, carried out in two SiO maser lines at 43 GHz with the Observatorio Astronómico Nacional 13.7 m telescope at the Centro Astronómico de Yebes (Guadalajara, Spain). In most objects, more than 80 spectra per transition over a period of 11 years have been recorded. The new data presented here, previously unpublished, represent nearly 50% of the total SiO data collected in the project. In addition, the availability of optical light curves from the AAVSO for most of the objects during the whole period of the SiO monitoring, ground-based near-IR data for four sources overlapping with 3 to 5 observed SiO periods, and DIRBE near-IR data covering a significant portion of an SiO period in 10 sources, make this data set a unique reference for comparing optical, NIR and SiO variability in order to elucidate the physical mechanisms that pump SiO masers in evolved stars. The basis for the conclusions obtained in this work comes from a numerical time series analysis of the suitable SiO, optical and NIR light curves in regular variables to obtain precise values of the periods and phase lags between the different curves. This analysis shows evidence that in regular variable evolved stars the three types of emission have the same period and that the SiO maxima happen in phase with NIR maxima and with a phase lag typically between 0.05 and 0.20 with respect to optical maxima. We conclude that in these objects the observational evidence presented in this work favors the radiative pumping of SiO masers against the collisional pumping.