English

VLT spectroscopy of blue supergiants in IC 1613

Astrophysics 2009-11-13 v1

Abstract

We present multi-object spectroscopy of young, massive stars in the Local Group galaxy IC 1613. We provide the spectral classification and a detailed spectral catalog for 54 OBA stars in this galaxy. The majority of the photometrically selected sample is composed of B- and A-type supergiants. The remaining stars include early O-type dwarfs and the only Wolf-Rayet star known in this galaxy. Among the early B stars we have serendipitously uncovered 6 Be stars, the largest spectroscopically confirmed sample of this class of objects beyond the Magellanic Clouds. We measure chemical abundances for 9 early-B supergiants, and find a mean oxygen abundance of 12+log(O/H)=7.90 +/- 0.08. This value is consistent with the result we obtain for two HII regions in which we detect the temperature-sensitive [OIII]4363 auroral line.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0707.2881,
  title  = {VLT spectroscopy of blue supergiants in IC 1613},
  author = {Fabio Bresolin and Miguel A. Urbaneja and Wolfgang Gieren and Grzegorz Pietrzynski and Rolf-Peter Kudritzki},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0707.2881},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

17 pages, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal