Constraining massive star evolution from massive clusters
Abstract
The exact evolution of massive stars is not accurately known at present. The general trend is that stars with masses above 40 - 60 Mo go from O-type stars to H-rich WN stars, and Luminous Blue Variables (?), before turning into H-poor WN stars and finally WC stars. At lower masses, the H-rich WN and LBV phases are replaced by a blue and a red supergiant phases, respectively. However, what are the details of such evolutionary sequences? The study of massive clusters is a golden opportunity to establish this. Indeed, the turn-off mass of massive clusters can be directly translated into the mass, and hence the nature, of the progenitors of their evolved objects contents. So far, only the Arches, Quintuplet, NGC3603, NGC2244 and central clusters have been studied this way. But 6 newly discovered heavily-obscured clusters in the large survey â"VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea" (VVV) have been found to have Wolf-Rayet stars as well as blue and/or red supergiants, together with many main sequence OB stars. This poster presents our efforts to model the massive star components of these clusters using CMFGEN, bringing new blocks to the pavement of massive stellar evolution and more than doubling the number of clusters in which such evolutionary sequence are established.
- Publication:
-
Massive Stars: From alpha to Omega
- Pub Date:
- June 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013msao.confE.143C