The mass-loss rates of red supergiants and the de Jager prescription

By N. Mauron, E. Josselin. 2010

185 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Mass loss of red supergiants (RSG) is important for the evolution of massive stars, but is not fully explained. Several empirical prescriptions have been proposed, trying to express the mass-loss rate ( u M) as a function of fundamental stellar parameters (mass, luminosity, effective temperature). Our goal is to test whether the de Jager et al. (1988, A&AS, 72, 259) prescription, which is used in some stellar evolution models, is still valid in view of more recent mass-loss determinations. By considering 40 Galactic RSGs with an infrared excess and an IRAS 60-μm flux larger than 2 Jy, and assuming a gas-to-dust mass ratio of 200, we find that the de Jager rate agrees within a factor 4 with most u M estimates based on the 60-μm signal. It also agrees with six of the only eight Galactic RSGs for which u M can be measured more directly through observations of the circumstellar gas. The two objects that do not follow the de Jager prescription (by an order of magnitude) are μ Cep and NML Cyg. We also considered the RSGs of the Magellanic Clouds. Thanks to the results of previous research, we find that the RSGs of the Small Magellanic Cloud have mass-loss rates consistent with the de Jager rate scaled by (Z/Z� ) α ,w hereZ is the metallicity and α is 0.7. The situation is less clear for the RSGs of the Large Magellanic Cloud. In particular, for L > 1.6 × 10 5 L� , one finds numerous RSGs (except WOH-G64) with u M significantly smaller than the de Jager rate and indicating that u M would no longer increase with L. Before this odd situation is confirmed through further analyses of LMC RSGs, we suggest to keep the de Jager prescription unchanged at solar metallicity in the stellar evolutionary models and to apply a( Z/Z� ) 0.7 dependence.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0e7e0c8213f30500b4b986ed3645d662265be982

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. S. Smartt
2. G. Meynet
3. R. Hirschi
4. C. Conroy
5. Stan Woosley
6. S. Ekström
7. Benjamin D. Johnson
8. Andre Maeder

In Instrumentation

1. S. Smartt
2. C. Conroy
3. G. Meynet
4. R. Hirschi
5. Benjamin D. Johnson
6. Andre Maeder
7. Stan Woosley
8. S. Ekström

Citations in the corpus

• Grids of stellar models with rotation - II. WR populations and supernovae/GRB progenitors at Z = 0.014 (2012, methodology): “Mauron & Josselin (2011), on the other hand, still recommend using the de Jager et al. (1988) rate for Galactic RSGs, indicating that this prescription agrees to within a factorof 4 with most mass-loss rate estimates based on the infrared 60µm excess.”
• TESTING A PREDICTIVE THEORETICAL MODEL FOR THE MASS LOSS RATES OF COOL STARS (2011, background): “…these models, it is also important to utilize the newest and most accurate measurements of stellar mass loss rates (see, e.g., Schröder & Cuntz 2007; Willson 2009; Catelan 2009; Mauron & Josselin 2011; Vieytes et al. 2011) and magnetic fields (Donati & Landstreet 2009; Vlemmings et al. 2011).”
• The SAGE-Spec Spitzer Legacy Program: The Life Cycle of Dust and Gas in the Large Magellanic Cloud (2010, background): “Note, though, that Mauron & Josselin (2011) found that LMC mass-loss rates do not show the same behaviour as Galactic rates for RSGs. Jones et al. (2012) compiled all 71 IRS spectra of LMC RSGs as part of their larger sample to study the emergence of crystalline silicates in oxygen-rich dust shells.”
• Observational Constraints on the Progenitors of Core-Collapse Supernovae: The Case for Missing High-Mass Stars (2015, background): “The mass-loss rates of red supergiants are correlated with stellar luminosities and Dwarkadas (2014) then used the Mauron & Josselin (2011) relations (Ṁ = 4.7 × 10−6(L/105)1.7) to illustrate that type II-P SNe do not have high enough xray luminosities to have had progenitors significantly greater…”
• Pulsational Pair-instability Supernovae (2016, methodology): “Based upon an analysis of RSGs in the Milky Way, LMC, and SMC, Mauron & Josselin (2011) suggest a scaling of (Z/Z ) 0.7, but with an uncertain factor overall of at least a factor of four.”
• MESA ISOCHRONES AND STELLAR TRACKS (MIST). I. SOLAR-SCALED MODELS (2016, methodology): “In a recent work comparing different wind prescriptions with mass loss rates estimated from a sample of RSGs in the Galaxy and in the Magellanic Clouds, Mauron & Josselin (2011) found that the de Jager rates agree to within a factor of 4 with most estimates derived from the 60 µm flux.”