Variability behaviour of CoRoT M-giant stars

The variability period and amplitude of C1 stars were computed using Lomb-Scargle and harmonic fit methods. Finally, we used C1 and C3 stars to study the variability behaviour of M-giant stars. The trends found in the V-I vs. J-K colour-colour diagram are in agreement with standard empirical calibrations for M giants.

The sources located towards the inner regions of the Galaxy are distributed throughout the diagram, while the majority of the stars towards the outer regions of the Galaxy are spread between the calibrations of M giants and the predicted position for carbon stars. The stars classified as supergiants follow a different sequence from the one found for giant stars. We also performed a Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test of the period and amplitude of stars towards the inner and outer regions of the Galaxy.

We obtained a low probability that the two samples came from the same parent distribution. The observed behaviour of the period-amplitude and period-effective temperature (T_eff_) diagrams are, in general, in agreement with those found for Kepler sources and ground based photometry, with pulsation being the dominant cause responsible for the observed modulation. We also conclude that short-time variations on M-giant stars do not exist or are very rare, and the few cases we found are possibly related to biases or background stars.