A census of post-AGB stars in Gaia DR3: evidence for a substantial population of Galactic post-RGB stars

Abstract

This paper presents the first census of Galactic post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) stars in the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram. We combined Gaia DR3 parallax-based distances with extinction corrected integrated fluxes and derived luminosities for a sample of 185 stars that had been proposed to be post-AGB stars in the literature. The luminosities allow us to create an HR diagram containing the largest number of post-AGB candidate objects to date. A significant fraction of the objects fall outside the typical luminosity range as covered by theoretical evolutionary post-AGB tracks as well as observed for planetary nebula central stars. These include massive evolved supergiants and lower luminosity objects. Here, we highlight the fact that one-third of the post-AGB candidates are underluminous and we identify these with the recently recognized class of post-red giant branch objects thought to be the result of binary evolution.