Red Supergiants in the Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

Massey, Philip; Silva, David R.; Levesque, Emily M.; Plez, B.; Olsen, Knut; Clayton, Geoffrey C.; Meynet, Georges; Maeder, A.

doi:10.1088/0004-637x/703/1/420

Cited by 91 publications

(222 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…is somewhat deceptive as these stars now are included under the more exact F I or G I headings. Similarly, many of the RSGs identified by Massey et al (2009a) were also classified in that paper. We discuss each of these groups below.…”

Section: New Membersmentioning

confidence: 83%

A Spectroscopic Survey of Massive Stars in M31 and M33*

Massey

Neugent

Smart

2016

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120

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We describe our spectroscopic follow-up to the Local Group Galaxy Survey (LGGS) photometry of M31 and M33. We have obtained new spectroscopy of 1895 stars, allowing us to classify 1496 of them for the first time. Our study has identified many foreground stars, and established membership for hundreds of early-and mid-type supergiants. We have also found nine new candidate luminous blue variables and a previously unrecognized Wolf-Rayet star. We republish the LGGS M31 and M33 catalogs with improved coordinates, and including spectroscopy from the literature and our new results. The spectroscopy in this paper is responsible for the vast majority of the stellar classifications in these two nearby spiral neighbors. The most luminous (and hence massive) of the stars in our sample are early-type B supergiants, as expected; the more massive O stars are more rare and fainter visually, and thus mostly remain unobserved so far. The majority of the unevolved stars in our sample are in the 20-40 M e range.

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Section: New Membersmentioning

confidence: 83%

A Spectroscopic Survey of Massive Stars in M31 and M33*

Massey

Neugent

Smart

2016

Self Cite

120

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“…The RSG and YSG candidates in M33 were photometrically selected by Drout et al from the Local Group Galaxy Survey (LGGS; Massey et al 2006), applying the following criteria: the YSG candidates had V < 18.7 mag, U − B > −0.4 mag and 0 mag ≤ B − V ≤ 1.4 mag, while for the RSG candidates V < 20.0 mag and V − R > 0.6 mag. An additional criterion of B − V > −1.599(V − R) 2 + 4.18(V − R) − 0.83 mag (Massey et al 2009) was adopted to separate likely foreground dwarfs from the supergiants. The rest of the foreground stars were excluded spectroscopically using the radial velocities of each star.…”

Section: Supergiantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Core-collapse supernova progenitor constraints using the spatial distributions of massive stars in local galaxies

Kangas

Portinari

Mattila

et al. 2017

A&A

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We study the spatial correlations between the H α emission and different types of massive stars in two local galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and Messier 33. We compare these to correlations derived for core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) in the literature to connect CCSNe of different types with the initial masses of their progenitors and to test the validity of progenitor mass estimates which use the pixel statistics method. We obtain samples of evolved massive stars in both galaxies from catalogues with good spatial coverage and/or completeness, and combine them with coordinates of main-sequence stars in the LMC from the SIMBAD database. We calculate the spatial correlation of stars of different classes and spectral types with H α emission. We also investigate the effects of distance, noise and positional errors on the pixel statistics method. A higher correlation with H α emission is found to correspond to a shorter stellar lifespan, and we conclude that the method can be used as an indicator of the ages, and therefore initial masses, of SN progenitors. We find that the spatial distributions of type II-P SNe and red supergiants of appropriate initial mass ( 9 M ) are consistent with each other. We also find the distributions of type Ic SNe and WN stars with initial masses 20 M consistent, while supergiants with initial masses around 15 M are a better match for type IIb and II-L SNe. The type Ib distribution corresponds to the same stellar types as type II-P, which suggests an origin in interacting binaries. On the other hand, we find that luminous blue variable stars show a much stronger correlation with H α emission than do type IIn SNe.

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“…It is desirable to remove the foreground star pointspread functions (PSF), but it is not straightforward to identify which stars are in the foreground and which belong to the host galaxy. It has been shown that it is possible to distinguish between massive stars in other galaxies and foreground dwarfs by use of colour-colour diagrams (Massey 1998;Massey et al 2009) or other kinematical techniques involving spectroscopy (Drout et al 2009). However, it was not necessary to resort to such detailed techniques for our purposes, because it is sufficient to remove only the brightest stars that are clearly in the foreground and contribute with significant light.…”

Section: Pre-processing Of Imagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Wolf-Rayet stars have similar locations in hosts as type Ib/c supernovae and long gamma-ray bursts?

Leloudas¹,

Sollerman

Levan

et al. 2010

A&A

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Aims. We study the distribution of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars and their subtypes with respect to their host galaxy light distribution. We thus want to investigate whether WR stars are potential progenitors of stripped-envelope core-collapse supernovae (SNe) and/or long-duration gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs). Methods. We derived the relative surface brightness (fractional flux) at the locations of WR stars and compared with similar results for LGRBs and SNe. We examined two nearby galaxies, M 83 and NGC 1313, for which a comprehensive study of the WR population exists. These two galaxies contain a sufficiently large number of WR stars and sample different metallicities. To enable the comparison, the images of the galaxies were processed to make them appear as they would look at a higher redshift. The robustness of our results against several sources of uncertainty was investigated with the aid of Monte Carlo simulations. Results. We find that the WC star distribution favours brighter pixels than the WN star population. WC stars are more likely drawn from the same distribution as SNe Ic than from other SN distributions, while WN stars show a higher degree of association with SNe Ib. It can also not be excluded that WR (especially WC) stars are related to LGRBs. Some differences between the two galaxies do exist, especially in the subtype distributions, and may stem from differences in metallicity. Conclusions. Although a conclusive answer is not possible, the expectation that WR stars are the progenitors of SNe Ib/c and LGRBs survives this test. The trend observed between the distributions of WN and WC stars, as compared to those of SNe Ib and Ic, is consistent with the theoretical picture that SNe Ic result from progenitors that have been stripped of a larger part of their envelope.

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Red Supergiants in the Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

Cited by 91 publications

References 54 publications

A Spectroscopic Survey of Massive Stars in M31 and M33*

A Spectroscopic Survey of Massive Stars in M31 and M33*

Core-collapse supernova progenitor constraints using the spatial distributions of massive stars in local galaxies

Do Wolf-Rayet stars have similar locations in hosts as type Ib/c supernovae and long gamma-ray bursts?

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