Short- and intermediate-period oxygen-rich Miras

Available IR photometry and the period-IR luminosity relationship are used to analyze a nearly complete sample of oxygen-rich Miras at Galactic latitudes with /b/ greater than 30 deg. In agreement with previous kinematic studies, a marked difference is found in the spatial distributions between the stars with periods less than and those with periods greater than 300 d. For stars with periods in the range 300-400 d, the exponential scale height from the Galactic plane is close to 240 pc, the projected surface density is about 100/sq kpc, and the local space density is about 210/cu kpc. The progenitors of the Miras with periods greater than 300 d appear to be disk dwarfs with typical main-sequence masses of between 1.0 and 1.2 solar masses. The masses of the main-sequence progenitors of the short-period Miras are 1.1 solar masses or less. The duration of the Mira phase for the intermediate-period stars is estimated to be about 20,000 yr, somewhat longer than other recent estimates. Both short- and intermediate-period oxygen-rich Miras characteristically lose mass at about 10 exp -7 solar mass/yr.