Searching for Cool Dust in the Mid-to-Far Infrared: The Mass Loss Histories of the Hypergiants mu Cep, VY CMa, IRC +10420, and rho Cas
Abstract
The most massive cool stars near the empircal upper limit of luminosity on the HR Diagram shed mass during brief, intense periods of enhanced mass loss. Their circumstellar environments show extensive and complex ejecta in scattered light at visual wavelengths. In the infrared, thermal emission from cooler dust in their ejecta can be used as a tracers of their mass loss histories. We combine high-resolution adaptive optics imaging from MMT/MIRAC (8 - 12 µm) with the new capabilities in far-infrared imaging of SOFIA/FORCAST and Herschel/PACS to probe further into the past for evidence of earlier mass loss for four famous objects: the red supergiants mu Cep and VY CMa and the yellow hypergiants IRC +10420 and rho Cas. We find evidence for a variable mass loss rate over several thousand years for mu Cep, while in contrast the lack of extended cold dust beyond VY CMa's visible ejecta indicates that its high mass loss episodes are recent. Despite its history of episodic mass loss, rho Cas has no resolved circumstellar ejecta. The new long wavelength photometry from FORCAST, however, confirms the presence of a slowly expanding dust shell from its 1946 event
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #227
- Pub Date:
- January 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AAS...22723903H