Observational Studies on Evolved Stars Using KVN and KaVA/EAVN

At the commissioning phase of KVN from 2009 to 2013, single-dish survey and monitoring observations were performed toward about 1000 evolved stars and about 60 relatively strong SiO and H2O maser sources respectively. Based on these single-dish results and VLBI feasibility test observations at K/Q/W/D bands in 2014, KVN Key Science Project (KSP) has started from 2015 and will be completed in 2019 as KSP phase I. Here we present the overview of observational studies on evolved stars using KVN. In KSP phase I, we have focused on nine KSP sources which show a successful astrometrically registered maps of SiO and H2O masers using the source frequency phase referencing method. We aim at investigating the spatial structure and dynamical effect from 43/42/86/129 GHz SiO to 22 GHz H2O maser regions associated with a stellar pulsation and development of asymmetry in circumstellar envelopes. Using the combined network KaVA (KVN+Japanese VLBI network VERA), KaVA Large Program titled on "Expanded Study on Stellar Masers: ESTEMA Phase I" was performed from 2015 to 2016. Based on ESTEMA Phase I, EAVN Large Program titled on "EAVN Synthesis of Stellar Maser Animations: ESTEMA Phase II" was also performed from 2018. The ESTEMA II project aims to publish composite animations of circumstellar H2O and SiO masers, which taken from up to 6 long-period variable stars with a variety of the pulsation periods (333-1000 days). The animations will exhibit the three-dimensional kinematics of the maser gas clumps with complexity caused by stellar pulsation-driven shock waves and anisotropy of clump ejections from the stellar surface. Adding three EAVN telescopes (Tianma 65m, Nanshan 26m and NRO 45m telescopes) with KaVA always secures the high quality of the maser image frames through the monitoring program.