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| Paper: |
The WISE View of RV Tauri Stars |
| Volume: |
497, Why Galaxies Care about AGB Stars III: A Closer Look in Space and Time |
| Page: |
223 |
| Authors: |
Gezer, I.; Van Winckel, H.; Bozkurt, Z. |
| Abstract: |
RV Tauri stars are luminous population II Cepheids which show a
characteristic light curve of alternating deep and shallow minima.
There are 170 known RV Tauri variables in our Galaxy and several
have been found in the LMC and SMC. The evolutionary nature of
RV Tauri stars is not understood yet. A limited number of RV Tauri
stars were detected by IRAS and found to show a large IR excess due
to thermal emission from dust, and hence these were classified as
post-AGB stars (Jura 1986). These objects occupy a specific region
in the IRAS color-color diagram due to the presence of a long-lived,
hot, rather stable dusty disk (Lloyd Evans 1999; De Ruyter et al. 2006; Hillen et al. 2014). We have expanded the analysis based on IRAS colors to
a similar but much deeper one using WISE (Wide-Field Infrared
Survey) data. WISE was launched in December 2009 and scanned the
whole sky in 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 μm bands (Wright et al. 2010).
We study systematically the infrared properties of all 170 Galactic
RV Tauri pulsators and differentiate between likely disk sources,
expanding shells, and objects without dust excesses. The aim is to
correlate infrared properties with chemical peculiarities and the
possible binary nature of the central stars. This will lead to a
better understanding of the evolutionary status of RV Tauri stars. |
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