A deep near-infrared spectroscopic survey of the Scutum-Crux arm for Wolf-Rayet stars★

We present a New Technology Telescope/Son-of-Isaac spectroscopic survey of infrared selected Wolf-Rayet (WR) candidates in the Scutum-Crux spiral arm (298 degrees <= l <= 340 degrees, vertical bar b vertical bar <= 0 degrees.5). We obtained near-IR spectra of 127 candidates, revealing 17 WR stars -a similar to 13 per cent success rate-of which 16 are newly identified here. The majority of the new WR stars are classified as narrow-lined WN5-7 stars, with two broad-lined WN4-6 stars and three WC6-8 stars. The new stars, with distances estimated from previous absolute magnitude calibrations, have no obvious association with the Scutum-Crux arm. Refined near-infrared (YHJK) classification criteria based on over a hundred Galactic and Magellanic Cloud WR stars, providing diagnostics for hydrogen in WN stars, plus the identification of WO stars and intermediate WN/C stars. Finally, we find that only a quarter of WR stars in the survey region are associated with star clusters and/or H-II regions, with similar statistics found for luminous blue variables (LBVs) in the Milky Way. The relative isolation of evolved massive stars is discussed, together with the significance of the co-location of LBVs and WR stars in young star clusters.