Identification of dusty massive stars in star-forming dwarf irregular
  galaxies in the Local Group with mid-IR photometry
  Increasing the statistics of spectroscopically confirmed evolved massive
stars in the Local Group enables the investigation of the mass loss phenomena
that occur in these stars in the late stages of their evolution. We aim to
complete the census of luminous mid-IR sources in star-forming dwarf irregular
(dIrr) galaxies of the Local Group. To achieve this we employed mid-IR
photometric selection criteria to identify evolved massive stars, such as red
supergiants (RSGs) and luminous blue variables (LBVs), by using the fact that
these types of stars have infrared excess due to dust. The method is based on
3.6 $\mu$m and 4.5 $\mu$m photometry from archival ${\it Spitzer}$ Space
Telescope images of nearby galaxies. We applied our criteria to 4 dIrr
galaxies: Pegasus, Phoenix, Sextans A, and WLM, selecting 79 point sources,
which we observed with the VLT/FORS2 spectrograph in multi-object spectroscopy
mode. We identified 13 RSGs, of which 6 are new discoveries, also 2 new
emission line stars, and 1 candidate yellow supergiant. Among the other
observed objects we identified carbon stars, foreground giants, and background
objects, such as a quasar and an early-type galaxy that contaminate our survey.
We use the results of our spectroscopic survey to revise the mid-IR and optical
selection criteria for identifying RSGs from photometric measurements. The
optical selection criteria are more efficient in separating extragalactic RSGs
from foreground giants than mid-IR selection criteria, however the mid-IR
selection criteria are useful for identifying dusty stars in the Local Group.
This work serves as a basis for further investigation of the newly discovered
dusty massive stars and their host galaxies.
