A Multiband Catalog of Infrared-Excess Sources in the Vela-Carina Region: VVVX, DECaPS, and GLIMPSE

Abstract

Multiwavelength surveys of the Galactic midplane enable the identification of infrared-excess sources, signatures of circumstellar material, though high extinction and crowding hinder detection. We construct a homogeneous catalog of infrared-excess candidates in a $\sim$7.0 deg${}^2$ field of the Vela-Carina region, characterizing their excess emission via spectral energy distribution (SED) analysis. We combine optical photometry from DECaPS, near-infrared photometry from VVVX, and mid-infrared photometry from Spitzer/GLIMPSE using hierarchical positional cross-matching. Candidates are selected via photometric quality and MIR color diagnostics, and their SEDs are analyzed with VOSA using theoretical atmosphere model grids. Photogeometric distances are adopted, while Gaia DR3 and NEOWISE variability provide complementary diagnostics. From the matched 249,719-source VVVX-GLIMPSE-DECaPS catalog, we identify 1,512 MIR-excess objects, of which 191 have complete 12-band photometry with S/N > 10, enabling detailed SED analysis. Photogeometric distances are statistically consistent with geometric distances for nearly the entire sample. SED analysis independently supports the MIR-excess nature of most sources, indicating emission beyond stellar photospheres. About 15% of sources are flagged variable by Gaia, while NEOWISE light curves reveal MIR variability of a few tenths of a magnitude. Comparisons with published YSO and variability-selected catalogs show limited overlap, particularly with variability-selected samples, indicating that MIR-excess selection complements other approaches to identifying candidate YSOs in the Vela-Carina region. The resulting catalog provides a well-defined MIR-excess sample with homogeneous multiband photometry, SED characterization, distances, and variability diagnostics, forming a foundation for future spectroscopic and time-domain studies.

24 pages (incl. appendix table), 7 figures. Accepted for publication in New Astronomy

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