New Galactic Candidate Luminous Blue Variables and Wolf-Rayet Stars

Abstract

We have undertaken a near-infrared spectral survey of stars associated with compact mid-IR shells recently revealed by the MIPSGAL (24 micron) and GLIMPSE (8 micron) Spitzer surveys, whose morphologies are typical of circumstellar shells produced by massive evolved stars. Through spectral similarity with known Luminous Blue Variable (LBV) and Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars, a large population of candidate LBVs (cLBVs) and a smaller number of new WR stars are being discovered. This significantly increases the Galactic cLBV population and confirms that nebulae are inherent to most (if not all) objects of this class. Keywords - stars: emission-line, Be, stars: mass loss, stars: winds, outflows, stars: Wolf-Rayet

2 pages, 1 figure. To appear in IAU 282 proceedings "From Interacting Binaries to Exoplanets: Essential Modeling Tools", Mercedes Richards \& Ivan Hubeny, eds

References in corpus (1)

• A Hidden Population of Massive Stars with Circumstellar Shells Discovered with the Spitzer Space Telescope

Cited by in corpus (3)

• MN48: a new Galactic bona fide luminous blue variable revealed by Spitzer and SALT
• How long can LBVs sleep? A long-term photometric vaiability and spectral study of the Galactic candidate luminous blue variable MN112
• Wray 15-906: a candidate luminous blue variable discovered with WISE, Herschel and SALT