J/A+A/698/A282 Candidate red supergiants from Gaia DR3 (Messineo, 2025)
Candidate red supergiants from Gaia DR3 BPRP spectra:
From the Perseus to the Scutum-Crux spiral arms.
Messineo M.
<Astron. Astrophys. 698, A282 (2025)>
=2025A&A...698A.282M 2025A&A...698A.282M (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: Stars, nearby ; Stars, supergiant ; Stars, bright ;
Stars, late-type ; Spectral types ; Stars, distances ;
Magnitudes ; Extinction
Keywords: catalogs - stars: late-type - stars: massives - supergiants -
dust, extinction - Galaxy: disk
Abstract:
Our position within the Galactic plane and the dust obscuration make
it challenging to retrieve a true picture of the Milky Way's
morphology. While the Milky Way has been recognized as a barred spiral
galaxy since the 1960s, there is still uncertainty about the exact
number of spiral arms it contains. Currently, our understanding of the
galaxy is evolving, thanks to the unprecedented details provided by
Gaia's parallactic distances. To shed light on the spatial
distribution of red supergiants (RSGs) on the Plane and their
uniformity of parameters across it, a census of galactic RSGs detected
by Gaia is needed. Candidate RSGs are extracted from the combined Gaia
DR3 and 2MASS catalogs using color criteria and parallactic distances.
The sample included 335 stars which were not included in catalogs of
previously known RSGs detected by Gaia DR3. Interstellar and
circumstellar extinction values are estimated from the infrared bands.
Spectral types are collected from Simbad or VIZIER databases and, for
135 candidates, are inferred from the Gaia DR3 BPRP spectra. Stellar
luminosities are inferred using photometric measurements and the Gaia
DR3 distances. The analysis performed warrants a genuine sample of
O-rich late-type stars, and the calculated luminosities confirm that
the sample is mostly made of stars brighter than Mbol=-5mag. This new
sample represents a 40% increase of the number of highly-probable RSGs
compared to previous studies. When looking at the X and Y distribution
on the Galactic plane, beside the populous Perseus associations of
RSGs, and the Sagittarius group of RSGs, a novel population of
highly-probable RSGs populating the more distant Scutum-Centaurus arm
appears.
Description:
We used the Gaia and 2MASS catalogs to select bright evolved
late-types. The selection yielded 335 new cRSGs, with K- and M-types
and luminosity larger then log(L/L☉)=4.
The luminosities were determined after a careful decomposition of the
total extinction in interstellar and circumstellar components.
Some chartes and spectra plots are displayed in
https://mariamessineo.github.io/rsg_Ak/ .
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table1.dat 165 335 Lists the 335 bright late-type stars (cRSGs)
phot.dat 132 335 Infrared photometry used to build the SEDs
tab_xyv.dat 66 762 *Joint samples of stars in areas A & B
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Note on tab_xyv.dat: File to make Fig10a: Joint samples of stars in areas A&B
from Messineo & Brown (2019AJ....158...20M 2019AJ....158...20M, Cat. J/AJ/158/20),
Messineo (2023A&A...671A.148M 2023A&A...671A.148M), and present work
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See also:
J/AJ/158/20 : K-M stars of class I candidate RSGs in Gaia DR2
(Messineo+, 2019)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 19 I19 --- GaiaDR3 Gaia DR3 source_id
21- 36 A16 --- 2MASS 2MASS ID
38- 41 A4 --- SpType Spectral type
43- 46 I4 K Teff Effective temperature (1)
48- 50 I3 K e_Teff Effective temperature error (1)
52 A1 --- Area [ABCDEF] Area occupied (2)
54- 57 F4.2 mag J-Ks Intrinsic (J-Ks) color (3)
59- 62 F4.2 mag H-Ks Intrinsic (H-Ks) color (3)
64- 68 F5.2 mag AKs Total extinction in Ks band (4)
70- 73 F4.2 mag e_AKs Uncertainty in AKs (4)
75- 79 F5.2 --- tau-2.2 Envelope optical depth (5)
81- 84 F4.2 mag Ksmag0 Dereddened 2MASS Ks band magnitude (6)
88- 91 F4.2 mag e_Ksmag0 Uncertainty in Ksmag0 (6)
93- 97 F5.2 mag MbolBC Bolometric magnitude from BCK (7)
99-102 F4.2 mag e_MbolBC Uncertainty in MbolBC (10)
104-108 F5.2 mag Mboltrap ?=99.99 Bolometric magnitude by
integration (8)
110-114 F5.2 mag e_Mboltrap ?=99.99 Uncertainty in Mboltrap (10)
116-120 F5.2 mag Mboldust ?=99.99 Bolometric magnitude from DUSTY (9)
122-126 F5.2 mag e_Mboldust ?=99.99 Uncertainty in Mboldust (10)
128-132 F5.2 mag DM Geometric Distance modulus (11)
134-137 F4.2 mag E_DM Upper uncertainty in DM (11)
139-143 F5.2 mag e_DM [] Lower uncertainty in DM (11)
145 I1 --- Qual [1/2] Quality flag (12)
147-159 A13 --- Cluster Name of the associated stellar cluster (13)
161-165 F5.2 [yr] logAge ?=99.99 Cluster age (13)
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Note (1): Teff is estimated from the spectral types (Levesque et al.,
2025ApJ...981..176L 2025ApJ...981..176L). Errors assume spectral types known within 2 classes.
Note (2): Areas in the M_bol vs. T_eff plot are as described in Messineo et al.
(2019AJ....158...20M 2019AJ....158...20M, Cat. J/AJ/158/20).
Note (3): For the assumed naked colors see Koornneef et al.
(1983A&A...128...84K 1983A&A...128...84K).
Note (4): The total extinction Aks(tot) = J-Ks-(J-Ks)_naked * 0.455 [mag],
or, if the J value is missing,
Aks(tot) = H-Ks-(H-Ks)_naked * 1.311 [mag].
Aks(int) = Aks(tot)-Aks(env) (for Aks(env), see below).
Negative Aks(int) are considered null in the computation of Mbol.
For the effective extinction ratios see Messineo et al. (2024A&A...686A.222M 2024A&A...686A.222M)
Note (5): The inferred envelope optical depth tau at 2.2um (using grain sizes
from 0.001 to 1.000 um).
The DUSTY grid used had a tau bin of 0.02 (see text).
Aks(env) = 0.3 * tau [mag].
Note (6): The de-reddened Ks magnitude Ko= 2MASS Ks - Aks.
Errors are obtained by propagating the photometric errors and the Aks errors.
Note (7): BCK values are calculated with the formula of Levesque et al. (2005).
Note (8): Mboltrap is obtained via trapezoidal integration under the SED.
Note (9): The bolometric magnitude Mbol_dust is estimated from the NextGen
models of Allard et al. (2011ASPC..448...91A 2011ASPC..448...91A ) and the DUSTY simulations
(see text).
Note (10): For each star, the standard deviations of the MbolBC, Mboltrap,
and Mboldust magnitudes are estimated with a Monte Carlo method (Nruns=2001
realizations, see text), as the sample sqrt(variance).
The distance moduli errors and Monte Carlo errors must be combined in
quadrature for the total error.
Note (11): The distance module (DM) errors are obtained using the quoted high
and low distance values by Bailer-Jones et al. (2021AJ....161..147B 2021AJ....161..147B,
Cat. I/352).
Note (12): This quality flag is set to unity when the ratio between the Gaia
DR3 parallax and its external error is larger than 4; it is set to 2 when,
in addition to the parallax constraint, the 2MASS JHKs quality flags are set
to A, or B, or C, or D.
Note (13): see Sect. 2.4 of the paper and references therein.
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: phot.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 16 A16 --- 2MASS 2MASS ID
18- 22 F5.3 mag Jmag 2MASS J band magnitude
24 A1 --- q_Jmag Quality flag on Jmag
26- 31 F6.3 mag Hmag ?=99.99 2MASS H band magnitude
33 A1 --- q_Hmag Quality flag on Hmag
35- 39 F5.3 mag Ksmag 2MASS Ks band magnitude
41 A1 --- q_Ksmag Quality flag on Ksmag
43- 48 F6.3 mag 8.3mag ?=99.99 MSX A band magnitude
50- 55 F6.3 mag 12.1mag ?=99.99 MSX C band magnitude
57- 62 F6.3 mag 14.6mag ?=99.99 MSX D band magnitude
64- 69 F6.3 mag 21.3mag ?=99.99 MSX E band magnitude
71- 76 F6.3 mag W1mag ?=99.99 WISE W1 band (3.4 micron) magnitude
78- 83 F6.3 mag W2mag ?=99.99 WISE W2 band (4.6 micron) magnitude
85- 90 F6.3 mag W3mag ?=99.99 WISE W3 band (11.6 micron) magnitude
92- 97 F6.3 mag W4mag ?=99.99 WISE W4 band (22.1 micron) magnitude
99-104 F6.3 mag 3.6mag ?=99.99 GLIMPSE catalog 3.6 micron band
magnitude
106-111 F6.3 mag 4.5mag ?=99.99 GLIMPSE catalog 4.5 micron band
magnitude
113-118 F6.3 mag 5.8mag ?=99.99 GLIMPSE catalog 5.8 micron band
magnitude
120-125 F6.3 mag 8.0mag ?=99.99 GLIMPSE catalog 8.0 micron band
magnitude
127-132 F6.3 mag 24mag ?=99.99 Spitzer/MIPS 24 micron band magnitude
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: tab_xyv.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 19 I19 --- GaiaDR3 Gaia DR3 source_id of the cRSG
21- 27 F7.2 deg GLON [-177/178[ Galactic longitude
29- 34 F6.2 deg GLAT Galactic latitude
36- 40 F5.2 kpc X8125 Distance from Galactic center along the Plane (1)
42- 46 F5.2 kpc Y8125 Distance in Plane, perpendicular to the X (2)
48- 52 F5.2 kpc X8500 Distance from Galactic center along the Plane (1)
54- 58 F5.2 kpc Y8500 Distance in Plane, perpendicular to the X (2)
60- 66 F7.2 km/s Vlsr Velocity in Local Standard of Rest (3)
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Note (1): A distance to the GC of 8.125 kpc is used, the sun is at (0,8.125).
Note (2): A distance to the GC of 8.500 kpc is used, the sun is at (0,8.500).
Note (3): For the solar motion, the model A5 of Reid et al.
(2019ApJ...886L..27R 2019ApJ...886L..27R) is used.
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Acknowledgements:
Maria Messineo, maria.messineo(at)hotmail.com
References:
Messineo & Brown, 2019AJ....158...20M 2019AJ....158...20M, A catalog of known Galactic K-M stars
of class I candidate red supergiants in Gaia DR2.
Messineo, 2023A&A...671A.148M 2023A&A...671A.148M, Identification of late-type Class I
stars using Gaia DR3 Apsis parameters.
(End) Patricia Vannier [CDS] 30-Apr-2025