2015AJ....149..100M

We have determined and compared the SiO maser velocity parameters of semiregular variables in the v = 1, J = 1 - 0 (J10¹) and the v = 1, J = 2 - 1 (J21) transitions. Fourteen sources in the Mopra SiO Maser Catalogue are classified as semiregular variables of types SR, SRa, SRb, or SRc. (L2 Puppis, an SRa star with an unusual SiO maser spectrum, has been analyzed individually.) We have previously presented the overall and phase dependent velocity parameters of SiO masers associated with long period variables (LPVs) of well-established periods and maxima. A comparison of the velocity centroid (VC) difference, VC21-VC10, shows mixed results for the variable types. Some differences are negative and some positive. The SRc difference is negative, large, and relatively stable. The SRb difference has the widest distribution. The velocity ranges (VRs) of the maser emission have been compared using arithmetic averages, Gaussian fits to the distributions, and Weibull fits to the distributions. For LPVs, SRs, SRas, and SRcs the VR10 is one to a few km/s greater than the VR21. SRcs have the largest VRs by a factor of two or three indicating the greater range over which the conditions necessary for masers to originate exist in these supergiant stars. SRbs are the only classification of semiregular variable in which the VR21 exceeds the VR10. The larger VR21 compared to VR10 for SRbs appears in all comparisons. The difference in the SRb SiO maser velocity parameters may be due to a difference in the oscillation mechanism of the star. The suggested overtone oscillations of SRbs may affect the circumstellar cloud dynamics. Little theoretical work has specifically addressed the masers in semiregular variables. Qualitative comparisons of the data with the existing models of the SiO masers in LPVs are made.