An asymptotic giant branch star survey in the small magellanic cloud

Abstract

We present photographic V- and I-band photometry of a 0.8 deg2 region in the Small Magellanic Cloud. We have used the V - I color index to identify the candidate asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars in this field and have obtained spectroscopic observations of all of the latter with Mbol < - 5.5. The majority prove to be of spectral type K4 or K5 with only one C star in the sample. We suggest that these earlier type giants are young, massive supergiants formed within the last few million years. A comparison with the LMC shows that the two systems have nearly identical AGB luminosity functions, suggesting that the relative star formation rates have been similar. Finally, while our radial veloc..