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A survey for red varibles in the LMC – II

1988; Oxford University Press; Volume: 232; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/mnras/232.1.53

1365-2966

Neill Reid, I. S. Glass, R. M. Catchpole,

Astronomy and Astrophysical Research

We present infrared photometry of a sample of 126 variables drawn from a 16 sq. deg. area of the northern LMC. Most of these stars were previously unknown and the majority prove to be long-period red-giant variables. Most of the latter stars fall within two groups in the [K0, log(P)] diagram, the lower luminosity ones being miras which obey a definite period–luminosity relation. We discuss using the latter stars as distance estimators. We have compared the (Mbol, P) diagram with the theoretical tracks calculated by Wood, Bessell & Fox and find that the distribution of stars is probably consistent with a lull in star formation in the LMC from |$\sim {10}^{9}-2\times {10}^{8}$| yr ago, although this conclusion depends strongly on the luminosity at which stars of different initial mass enter the thermally pulsing AGB.