Discovery of an Extraordinary Number of Red Supergiants in the Inner Galaxy

In this Letter, we present a search for Galactic red supergiant stars (RSGs) in the direction of the inner Galaxy. A total of 94 targets selected from the 2MASS and GLIMPSE I North catalogs—via their blue extinction-free Q1 and Q2 colors—were spectroscopically observed at infrared wavelengths (in the H- and K-bands at R ∼ 1000), and an extraordinary high detection rate of RSGs (\gt 61%) was found. We identified spectroscopically 58 RSGs, based on their flat continua and large equivalent widths of the CO-band at 2.293 μm (EW > 45 Å). This increase corresponds to about 25% of previously known RSGs in the Galactic region 10° < l < 60°, -1.°1 < b < 1.°1. In order to confirm the location of the new RSGs in the inner Galaxy, distances were estimated for a subsample of 47 stars with the clump method and found to range from 3.6 ± 0.4 to 8.6 ± 0.7 kpc. The large new sample will allow us to investigate Galactic metallicity gradients as a function of galactocentric distances and azimuthal angles. Such information is currently an highly disputed issue to constrain models of Galaxy formation and evolution.