Multiple ring nebulae around blue supergiants

Abstract

In the course of the life of a massive star, wind-wind interaction can give rise to the formation of circumstellar nebulae which are both predicted and observed in the nature. We present generic model calculations to predict the properties of such nebulae for blue supergiants. From stellar evolution calculations including rotation, we obtain the time dependence of the stellar wind properties and of the stellar radiation field. These are used as input for hydro-calculations of the circumstellar medium throughout the star's life. Here, we present the results for a rapidly rotating 12 solar masses single star. This star undergoes a blue loop during its post main sequence evolution, at the onset of which its contraction spins it up close to critical rotation. Due to the consequent anisotropic mass loss, the blue supergiant wind sweeps up the preceding slow wind into an hour glass structure. Its collision with the previously formed spherical red supergiant wind shell forms a short-lived luminous nebula consisting of two polar caps and a central inner ring. With time, the polar caps evolve into mid-latitude rings which gradually move toward the equatorial plane while the central ring is fading. These structures are reminiscent to the observed nebulae around the blue supergiant Sher 25 and the progenitor of SN 1987A. The simple model of an hour glass colliding with a spherical shell retrieves most of the intriguing nebula geometries discovered around blue supergiants, and suggests them to form an evolutionary sequence. Our results indicate that binarity is not required to obtain them.

Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters; Associated movie available at http://www.astro.uu.nl/~chita

References in corpus (16)

• Presupernova Evolution of Rotating Massive Stars I: Numerical Method and Evolution of the Internal Stellar Structure
• Presupernova Evolution of Rotating Massive Stars II: -- Evolution of the Surface Properties
• Atmospheric NLTE-Models for the Spectroscopic Analysis of Blue Stars with Winds. II. Line-Blanketed Models
• The VLT-FLAMES survey of massive stars: rotation and nitrogen enrichment as the key to understanding massive star evolution
• Statistical properties of a sample of periodically variable B-type supergiants - Evidence for opacity-driven gravity-mode oscillations
• Discovery of a nearby twin of SN1987A's nebula around the luminous blue variable HD168625: Was Sk--69 202 an LBV?
• Galactic Twins of the Ring Nebula Around SN1987A and a Possible LBV-like Phase for Sk-69 202
• Giant Outbursts of Luminous Blue Variables and the Formation of the Homunculus Nebula Around eta Carinae
• The circumstellar environment of Wolf-Rayet stars & Gamma-ray burst afterglows
• Multiple ring nebulae around blue supergiants
• Constraints on gamma-ray burst and supernova progenitors through circumstellar absorption lines
• And in the Darkness Bind Them: Equatorial Rings, B[e] Supergiants, and the Waists of Bipolar Nebulae
• Ring Nebula and Bipolar Outflows Associated with the B1.5 Supergiant Sher #25 in NGC 3603
• SN 1987A's Circumstellar Envelope, II: Kinematics of the Three Rings and the Diffuse Nebula
• The circumstellar medium around a rapidly rotating, chemically homogeneously evolving, possible gamma-ray burst progenitor
• Constraints on gamma-ray burst and supernova progenitors through circumstellar absorption lines. (II): Post-LBV Wolf-Rayet stars

Cited by in corpus (56)

• Progenitors of core-collapse supernovae
• Is there a supernova bound on axions?
• Binary stars as the key to understanding planetary nebulae
• Radiation-Hydrodynamic Models of the evolving Circumstellar Medium around Massive Stars
• Supernova 1987A: a Template to Link Supernovae to their Remnants
• Models of the circumstellar medium of evolving, massive runaway stars moving through the Galactic plane
• Multiple ring nebulae around blue supergiants
• Chandra Observes the End of an Era SN 1987A
• Endurance of SN 2005ip after a decade: X-rays, radio, and H-alpha like SN 1988Z require long-lived pre-supernova mass loss
• Abundances and density structure of the inner circumstellar ring around SN 1987A
• The Destruction of the Circumstellar Ring of SN 1987A
• 3D MHD modeling of the expanding remnant of SN 1987A. Role of magnetic field and non-thermal radio emission
• Matter Mixing in Aspherical Core-collapse Supernovae: Three-dimensional Simulations with Single Star and Binary Merger Progenitor Models for SN 1987A
• The quest for blue supergiants: binary merger models for the evolution of the progenitor of SN 1987A
• Chandra observations of SN 1987A: the soft X-ray light curve revisited
• Asymmetric supernova remnants generated by Galactic, massive runaway stars
• Bow shock nebulae of hot massive stars in a magnetized medium
• Episodic mass loss in binary evolution to the Wolf-Rayet phase: Keck and HST proper motions of RY Scuti's nebula
• The 30-Year Search for the Compact Object in SN 1987A
• Multi-dimensional models of circumstellar shells around evolved massive stars
• Wind morphology around cool evolved stars in binaries: the case of slowly accelerating oxygen-rich outflows
• The Ring Nebula Around the Blue Supergiant SBW1: Pre-Explosion Snapshot of a SN 1987A Twin
• Resolving the kinematics of the disks around Galactic B[e] supergiants
• G11.2-0.3: The Young Remnant of a Stripped-Envelope Supernova
• The Intermediate Luminosity Optical Transient SN 2010da: The Progenitor, Eruption and Aftermath of a Peculiar Supergiant High-mass X-ray Binary
• Shock-powered radio emission from V5589 Sagittarii (Nova Sgr 2012 1)
• The Re-Acceleration of the Shock Wave in the Radio Remnant of SN 1987A
• Highlights and Discoveries from the Chandra X-ray Observatory
• What planetary nebulae can tell us about jets in core collapse supernovae
• Forming equatorial rings around dying stars
• Thermal Emission and Radioactive Lines, but No Pulsar, in the Broadband X-Ray Spectrum of Supernova 1987A
• Circum-stellar medium around rotating massive stars at solar metallicity
• Detailed X-Ray Mapping of the Shocked Ejecta and Circumstellar Medium in the Galactic Core-Collapse Supernova Remnant G292.0+1.8
• Dusty Blue Supergiants: News from High-Angular Resolution Observations
• The Post-impact Evolution of the X-ray Emitting Gas in SNR 1987A Viewed by XMM-Newton
• Can a bright and energetic X-ray pulsar be hiding amid the debris of SN 1987A?
• The sculpting of rectangular and jet-like morphologies in supernova remnants by anisotropic equatorially-confined progenitor stellar winds
• Luminous blue variables: An imaging perspective on their binarity and near environment
• Resolving the clumpy circumstellar environment of the B[e] supergiant LHA 120-S 35
• SN 1987A : Tracing the flux decline and spectral evolution through a comparison of SRG/eROSITA and XMM-Newton observations
• Spectroscopic and photometric oscillatory envelope variability during the S Doradus outburst of the Luminous Blue Variable R71
• The blue supergiant MN18 and its bipolar circumstellar nebula
• Sher 25: pulsating but apparently alone
• TYC 3159-6-1: a runaway blue supergiant
• On the ring nebulae around runaway Wolf-Rayet stars
• On the bipolarity of Wolf-Rayet nebulae
• PION: Simulating bow shocks and circumstellar nebulae
• Mixing of materials in magnetised core-collapse supernova remnants
• Tracing back the evolution of the candidate LBV HD168625
• Connecting stellar and galactic scales: Energetic feedback from stellar wind bubbles to supernova remnants
• Ionization-Gasdynamic Simulations of Wind-Blown Nebulae around Massive Stars
• The blue supergiant Sher 25 revisited in the Gaia era
• Photodissociation in proto-planetary nebulae. Hydrodynamical simulations and solutions for low-velocity multi-lobes
• UV spectroscopy of the blue supergiant SBW1: the remarkably weak wind of a SN 1987A analog
• Faraday Rotation Distributions from Stellar Magnetism in Wind-Blown Bubbles
• The Red and Yellow Hypergiants