Identification of oxygen-rich evolved stars by maser surveys and statistical studies on infrared data

Abstract

The post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) phase is a short episode in the life of a star with mass between 0.8 to 8 M⊙. It comes after the AGB phase, and before the planetary nebula phase. A rapid change in many physical properties of a star is suggested to happen in this phase, for example the onset of jets. However, a lot of details are still unknown. In this thesis, three major problems are addressed: insufficient samples of post-AGB stars, identification of post-AGB stars, and the true status of a special class of objects called the “water fountains (WFs)”. WFs are evolved stars associated with high velocity collimated bipolar jets that can be traced by H2O maser emissions. For the first two problems, new searching criteria are introduced with two new maser surveys on oxygen-rich post-AGB stars. It is necessary to collect more samples of post-AGB stars for further studies. Nonetheless, there has been no systematic searching method because most of the post-AGB stars are dim in optical and near-infrared wavelengths, which increases the difficulty in identification. Maser thus becomes a good alternative tool. In the first survey which focused only on H2O masers, over 200 AGB or post-AGB star candidates have been selected and observed. Those candidates were mainly chosen by new colour criteria with the far-infrared AKARI data. In particular, four characteristic maser sources were found, and they are currently suggested as possible very young post-AGB stars. In the second survey, another 100 objects were observed in OH and/or H2O masers. Three possible high velocity objects were discovered, including a new rare member of WFs. The colour criteria are proved to be quite sensitive in distinguishing post-AGB stars from AGB stars or other types of objects, even though there are still some contamination from young stellar objects. A follow-up study shows that the Q-parameters are effective in isolating objects with spherical or aspherical envelopes, which are also useful in finding post-AGB stars. Regarding the third problem, one-dimensional radiative transfer models have been used to study the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of all known WFs. Owing to the young dynamical ages of the WF jets, it has been suggested that WFs represent the very early post-AGB phase, when the circumstellar envelopes started to depart from spherical symmetry. However, it is shown from the present SED study that WFs in fact could have various form of morphologies, some of them are even spherical which resemble the AGB stars. It implies that WFs do not necessary belong to the very early post-AGB phase, and the present interpretation on the WF status may not be entirely correct.