A red supergiant nebula at 25 micron: arcsecond scale mass-loss asymmetries of mu Cep

Abstract

We present diffraction limited (0.6") 24.5micron Subaru/COMICS images of the red supergiant mu Cep. We report the detection of a circumstellar nebula, that was not detected at shorter wavelengths. It extends to a radius of at least 6" in the thermal infrared. On these angular scales, the nebula is roughly spherical, in contrast, it displays a pronounced asymmetric morphology closer in. We simultaneously model the azimuthally averaged intensity profile of the nebula and the observed spectral energy distribution using spherical dust radiative transfer models. The models indicate a constant mass-loss process over the past 1000 years, for mass-loss rates a few times 10^(-7) Msun/yr. This work supports the idea that at least part of the asymmetries in shells of evolved massive stars and supernovae may be due to the mass-loss process in the red supergiant phase.

Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters

References in corpus (1)

• Resolving the ionized wind of the post-Red Supergiant IRC +10 420 with VLTI/AMBER

Cited by in corpus (11)

• The Initial Masses of the Red Supergiant Progenitors to Type-II Supernovae
• The evolution of Red Supergiants to supernova in the LMC cluster NGC 2100
• Resolved 24.5 micron emission from massive young stellar objects
• Tomography of cool giant and supergiant star atmospheres II. Signature of convection in the atmosphere of the red supergiant star $\mu$ Cep
• ALMA detection of CO rotational line emission in red supergiant stars of the massive young star cluster RSGC1 -- Determination of a new mass-loss rate prescription for red supergiants
• NOEMA maps the CO $J=2-1$ environment of the red supergiant $\mu$ Cep
• Dusty Blue Supergiants: News from High-Angular Resolution Observations
• VLTI/AMBER spectro-interferometry of the late-type supergiants V766 Cen (=HR 5171 A), sigma Oph, BM Sco, and HD 206859
• Red Supergiants, Yellow Hypergiants, and Post-RSG Evolution
• Imaging the outward motions of clumpy dust clouds around the red supergiant Antares with VLT/VISIR
• Differential speckle polarimetry at Cassegrain and Nasmyth foci