HD144941: The most extreme helium-strong star

Abstract

Since its discovery about 50 years ago, HD144941 has generally been classified as a peculiar member of the extreme helium (EHe) supergiant stars, a very rare class of low-mass hydrogen-deficient stars. We report the detection of a strong longitudinal magnetic field based on spectropolarimetry with FORS2 on the ESO VLT with surface-averaged longitudinal field strengths as large as -9kG. This is further constrained by the detection of Zeeman splitting of spectral lines to a field strength of at least 15kG, explaining the recent finding of surface spots for this star. The quantitative analysis of the stellar atmosphere based on a hybrid non-local thermodynamic equilibrium approach and new optical spectra yields an effective temperature of 22000$\pm$500K, a logarithmic surface gravity of 4.20$\pm$0.10, and a surface helium fraction of 0.950$\pm$0.002 by number. While the metal abundances are about a factor of 10 sub-solar in absolute number, the metal-to-hydrogen ratios are typical of massive early-type stars, indicating that helium fallback in a weak, fractionated stellar wind in the presence of a magnetic field took place -- the canonical mechanism for the formation of the helium-strong phenomenon. Both the spectroscopic and the Gaia EDR3 parallax imply HD144941 to be a luminous massive star. Kinematically, we argue that HD144941 has reached its high Galactic latitude as a runaway star. We conclude that instead of being a comparatively high-gravity low-mass EHe star, HD144941 is by far the most extreme member of the magnetic massive helium-strong stars, with almost all atmospheric hydrogen substituted by helium.

9 pages, 8 figures, see A&A for the published version

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Quantitative spectroscopy of B-type supergiants
• CRIRES high-resolution near-infrared spectroscopy of diffuse interstellar band profiles. Detection of 12 new DIBs in the YJ band and the introduction of a combined ISM sight line and stellar analysis approach
• The distribution, kinematics and luminosities of extreme helium stars as probes of their origin and evolution
• Discovery of three magnetic helium-rich hot subdwarfs with SALT
• Quantitative spectroscopy of multiple OB stars: I. The quadruple system HD 37061 at the centre of Messier 43