The extreme scarcity of dust-enshrouded red supergiants: consequences for producing stripped stars via winds

Abstract

Quiescent mass-loss during the red supergiant (RSG) phase has been shown to be far lower than prescriptions typically employed in single-star evolutionary models. Importantly, RSG winds are too weak to drive the production of Wolf-Rayets (WRs) and stripped-envelope supernovae (SE-SNe) at initial masses of roughly 20--40$M_{\odot }$. If single-stars are to make WRs and SE-SNe, this shifts the burden of mass-loss to rare dust-enshrouded RSGs (DE-RSGs), objects claimed to represent a short-lived high mass-loss phase. Here, we take a fresh look at the purported DE-RSGs. By modeling the mid-IR excesses of the full sample of RSGs in the LMC, we find that only one RSG has both a high mass-loss rate (\mdot $\ge$ 10${}^{-4}$ $M_{\odot }$ yr${}^{-1}$) and a high optical circumstellar dust extinction (7.92 mag). This one RSG is WOH G64, and it is the only one of the 14 originally proposed DE-RSGs that is actually dust enshrouded. The rest appear to be either normal RSGs without strong infrared-excess, or lower-mass asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. Only one additional object in the full catalog of RSGs (not previously identified as a DE-RSG) shows strong mid-IR excess. We conclude that if DE-RSGs do represent a pre-SN phase of enhanced \mdot\ in single-stars, it is extremely short-lived, only capable of removing $\le$2\msun\ of material. This rules out the single-star post-RSG pathway for the production of WRs, LBVs, and SE-SN. Single-star models should not employ \mdot-prescriptions based on these extreme objects for any significant fraction of the RSG phase.

arXiv comment17 pages, 10 figures. Accepted with minor revision to ApJ

References in corpus (60)

• MESA Isochrones and Stellar Tracks (MIST). I: Solar-Scaled Models
• How Massive Single Stars End their Life
• Grids of stellar models with rotation - I. Models from 0.8 to 120 Msun at solar metallicity (Z = 0.014)
• A Quantitative Comparison of SMC, LMC, and Milky Way UV to NIR Extinction Curves
• Mass Loss: Its Effect on the Evolution and Fate of High-Mass Stars
• The death of massive stars - I. Observational constraints on the progenitors of type II-P supernovae
• Observed Fractions of Core-Collapse Supernova Types and Initial Masses of their Single and Binary Progenitor Stars
• The Effective Temperature Scale of Galactic Red Supergiants: Cool, But Not As Cool As We Thought
• Stellar evolution with rotation X: Wolf-Rayet star populations at solar metallicity
• The First Systematic Study of Type Ibc Supernova Multi-band Light Curves
• The Magellanic Clouds Photometric Survey: The Large Magellanic Cloud Stellar Catalog and Extinction Map
• An empirical formula for the mass-loss rates of dust-enshrouded red supergiants and oxygen-rich Asymptotic Giant Branch stars
• Grids of stellar models with rotation - III. Models from 0.8 to 120 Msun at a metallicity Z = 0.002
• Bolometric light curves and explosion parameters of 38 stripped-envelope core-collapse supernovae
• Evolution of massive stars with pulsation-driven superwinds during the RSG phase
• Spitzer SAGE Infrared Photometry of Massive Stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The Effective Temperatures and Physical Properties of Magellanic Cloud Red Supergiants: The Effects of Metallicity
• Unifying Type II Supernova Light Curves with Dense Circumstellar Material
• Red supergiants as potential Type IIn supernova progenitors: Spatially resolved 4.6 micron CO emission around VY CMa and Betelgeuse
• Coronal lines and dust formation in SN 2005ip: Not the brightest, but the hottest Type IIn supernova
• A new mass-loss rate prescription for red supergiants
• How much H and He is "hidden" in SNe Ib/c? I. - low-mass objects
• The wind speeds, dust content, and mass-loss rates of evolved AGB and RSG stars at varying metallicity
• The delay of shock breakout due to circumstellar material seen in most Type II Supernovae
• The temperatures of Red Supergiants
• High-Resolution Imaging of Molecular Gas and Dust in the Antennae (NGC 4038/39): Super Giant Molecular Complexes
• Yellow supergiants as supernova progenitors: an indication of strong mass loss for red supergiants?
• The Mass-Loss Return From Evolved Stars to The Large Magellanic Cloud VI: Luminosities and Mass-Loss Rates on Population Scales
• (Sub)stellar companions shape the winds of evolved stars
• Dust and Gas in the Magellanic Clouds from the HERITAGE Herschel Key Project. II. Gas-to-Dust Ratio Variations across ISM Phases
• The AGB superwind speed at low metallicity
• The luminosities of cool supergiants in the Magellanic Clouds, and the Humphreys-Davidson limit revisited
• The Reddening of Red Supergiants: When Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
• On Absorption by Circumstellar Dust, With the Progenitor of SN2012aw as a Case Study
• Hubble Space Telescope imaging of the progenitor sites of six nearby core-collapse supernovae
• The last gasps of VY CMa: Aperture synthesis and adaptive optics imagery
• The WR population predicted by massive single star and by massive binary evolution
• Late-Type Red Supergiants: Too Cool for the Magellanic Clouds?
• Dust-enshrouded giants in clusters in the Magellanic Clouds
• Luminosities and mass-loss rates of Local Group AGB stars and Red Supergiants
• The evolution of Red Supergiants to supernova in the LMC cluster NGC 2100
• What causes the large extensions of red-supergiant atmospheres? Comparisons of interferometric observations with 1-D hydrostatic, 3-D convection, and 1-D pulsating model atmospheres
• Obscured AGB stars in the Magellanic Clouds II. Near-infrared and mid-infrared counterparts
• The Mass-Loss Return from Evolved Stars to the Large Magellanic Cloud IV: Construction and Validation of a Grid of Models for Oxygen-Rich AGB Stars, Red Supergiants, and Extreme AGB Stars
• A Spitzer IRS Spectral Atlas of Luminous 8 micron Sources in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• An LTE effective temperature scale for red supergiants in the Magellanic clouds
• Spatially resolved dusty torus toward the red supergiant WOH G64 in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Analytic, dust-independent mass-loss rates for red supergiant winds initiated by turbulent pressure
• Large dust grains in the wind of VY Canis Majoris
• A new survey of cool supergiants in the Magellanic Clouds
• The Mass-Loss Return from Evolved Stars to the Large Magellanic Cloud II: Dust Properties for Oxygen-Rich Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars
• Circumstellar masers in the Magellanic Clouds
• The Age of Westerlund 1 Revisited
• Exploring the Mass Loss Histories of the Red Supergiants
• Red supergiant stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud. II. Infrared properties and mid-infrared variability
• The Period-Luminosity Relations of Red Supergiants in M33 and M31
• Spatially extended K I 7699 emission in the nebula of VY CMa: Kinematics and geometry
• ALMA-resolved salt emission traces the chemical footprint and inner wind morphology of VY CMa
• Young LMC clusters: the role of red supergiants and multiple stellar populations in their integrated light and CMDs
• A critical re-evaluation of the Thorne-Żytkow object candidate HV 2112