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McDonald, SLE, Davies, B and Beasor, ER (2021) Red supergiants in M31: the Humphreys-Davidson limit at high metallicity. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 510 (3). pp. 3132-3144. ISSN 0035-8711
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Abstract
The empirical upper limit to red supergiant (RSG) luminosity, known as the Humphreys–Davidson (HD) limit, has been commonly explained as being caused by the stripping of stellar envelopes by metallicity-dependent line-driven winds. As such, the theoretical expectation is that the HD limit should be higher at lower metallicity, where weaker mass-loss rates mean that higher initial masses are required for an envelope to be stripped. In this paper, we test this prediction by measuring the luminosity function of RSGs in M31 and comparing it to those in the LMC and SMC. We find that log (Lmax/L⊙) = 5.53 ± 0.03 in M31 (Z ≳ Z⊙), consistent with the limit found for both the LMC (Z ∼ 0.5 Z⊙) and SMC (Z ∼ 0.25 Z⊙), while the RSG luminosity distributions in these three galaxies are consistent to within 1σ. We therefore find no evidence for a metallicity dependence on both the HD limit and the RSG luminosity function, and conclude that line-driven winds on the main sequence are not the cause of the HD limit.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Additional Information: | This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2021 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Science & Technology; Physical Sciences; Astronomy & Astrophysics; stars: evolution; stars: massive; supergiants; MASS-LOSS RATES; RADIATION-DRIVEN WINDS; STELLAR EVOLUTION; MAGELLANIC CLOUDS; LUMINOUS STARS; O-STARS; MODELS; EXTINCTION; ROTATION; CLUSTERS; Science & Technology; Physical Sciences; Astronomy & Astrophysics; stars: evolution; stars: massive; supergiants; MASS-LOSS RATES; RADIATION-DRIVEN WINDS; M-CIRCLE-DOT; STELLAR EVOLUTION; MAGELLANIC CLOUDS; LUMINOUS STARS; O-STARS; MODELS; ROTATION; GRIDS; 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences; Astronomy & Astrophysics |
| Subjects: | Q Science > QB Astronomy Q Science > QC Physics |
| Divisions: | Astrophysics Research Institute |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
| SWORD Depositor: | A Symplectic |
| Date Deposited: | 09 May 2022 09:11 |
| Last Modified: | 09 May 2022 09:15 |
| DOI or ID number: | 10.1093/mnras/stab3453 |
| URI: | https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/16772 |
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