Galactic Wolf-Rayet stars with Gaia DR2 I

Distances agree with those from Bailer-Jones et al. for stars up to 2kpc from the Sun, though deviate thereafter due to differing priors, leading to modest reductions in luminosities for recent WR spectroscopic results. We calculate visual and K-band absolute magnitudes, accounting for dust extinction contributions and binarity, and identify 187 stars with reliable absolute magnitudes.

For WR and O stars within 2kpc, we find a WR/O ratio of 0.09. The distances are used to generate absolute magnitude calibrations and obtain the Gaia colour-magnitude diagram for WR stars. Average vWR-band absolute magnitudes for WN stars range from -3.6 mag (WN3-4) to -7.0mag (WN8-9ha), and -3.1(WO2-4) to -4.6mag (WC9), with standard deviations of ~0.6mag.