AKARI's infrared view on nearby stars

<i>Context. <i/>The AKARI, a Japanese infrared space mission, has performed an All-Sky Survey in six infrared-bands from 9 to 180 <i>μ<i/>m with higher spatial resolutions and better sensitivities than IRAS.<i>Aims. <i/>We investigate the mid-infrared (9 and 18 <i>μ<i/>m) point source catalog (PSC) obtained with the infrared camera (IRC) onboard AKARI, in order to understand the infrared nature of the known objects and to identify previously unknown objects.<i>Methods. <i/>Color–color diagrams and a color–magnitude diagram were plotted with the AKARI-IRC PSC and other available all-sky survey catalogs. We combined the Hipparcos astrometric catalog and the 2MASS all-sky survey catalog with the AKARI-IRC PSC. We furthermore searched literature and SIMBAD astronomical database for object types, spectral types, and luminosity classes. We identified the locations of representative stars and objects on the color-magnitude and color-color diagram schemes. The properties of unclassified sources can be inferred from their locations on these diagrams.<i>Results. <i/>We found that the (<i>B<i/>–<i>V<i/>) vs. (<i>V<i/>–<i>S9W<i/>) color–color diagram is useful for identifying the stars with infrared excess emerged from circumstellar envelopes or disks. Be stars with infrared excess are separated well from other types of stars in this diagram. Whereas (<i>J<i/>–<i>L18W<i/>) vs. (<i>S9W<i/>–<i>L18W<i/>) diagram is a powerful tool for classifying several object types. Carbon-rich asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars and OH/IR stars form distinct sequences in this color-color diagram. Young stellar objects (YSOs), pre-main sequence (PMS) stars, post-AGB stars, and planetary nebulae (PNe) have the largest mid-infrared color excess and can be identified in the infrared catalog. Finally, we plot the <i>L18W<i/> vs. (<i>S9W<i/>–<i>L18W<i/>) color-magnitude diagram, using the AKARI data together with Hipparcos parallaxes. This diagram can be used to identify low-mass YSOs and AGB stars. We found that this diagram is comparable to the [24] vs. ([8.0]-[24]) diagram of Large Magellanic Cloud sources using the <i>Spitzer<i/> Space Telescope data. Our understanding of Galactic objects will be used to interpret color-magnitude diagram of stellar populations in the nearby galaxies that <i>Spitzer<i/> Space Telescope observed. <i>Conclusions. <i/>Our study of the AKARI color–color and color–magnitude diagrams will be used to explore properties of unknown objects in the future. In addition, our analysis highlights a future key project to understand stellar evolution with a circumstellar envelope, once the forthcoming astronometrical data with GAIA are available.