Mass loss of red supergiants: a key ingredient for the final evolution of massive stars

Abstract

Mass-loss rates during the red supergiant phase are very poorly constrained from an observational or theoretical point of view. However, they can be very high, and make a massive star lose a lot of mass during this phase, influencing considerably the final evolution of the star: will it end as a red supergiant? Will it evolve bluewards by removing its hydrogen-rich envelope? In this paper, we briefly summarise the effects of this mass loss and of the related uncertainties, particularly on the population of blue supergiant stars.

6 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the conference "The physics of evolved stars" dedicated to the memory of O. Chesneau (Nice, 2015). Will be published in EAS publications series

References in corpus (4)

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• Quantitative Spectroscopy of 24 A supergiants in the Sculptor galaxy NGC 300: Flux weighted gravity luminosity relationship, metallicity and metallicity gradient
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• The Time-Averaged Mass-Loss Rates of Red Supergiants As Revealed by their Luminosity Functions in M31 and M33
• On massive dust clumps in the envelope of the red supergiant VY Canis Majoris
• Detection of the Red Supergiant Wind from the Progenitor of Cassiopeia A
• {\sc precision}: A fast python pipeline for high-contrast imaging -- application to SPHERE observations of the red supergiant VX Sagitariae
• The evolution of Red Supergiant mass-loss rates