Related papers: Discovery of the first B[e] supergiants in M 31
It remains unclear whether massive star evolution is facilitated by mass loss through stellar winds only, or whether episodic mass loss during an eruptive luminous blue variable (LBV) phase is also significant. LBVs exhibit unique…
Yellow supergiants (YSGs) are rare and poorly understood, and studying them is critical to constraining massive star evolution. We obtained flux-calibrated Magellan Inamori Kyocera Echelle (MIKE) high-resolution spectra of 40 YSGs in the…
The aim of this paper is to establish a complete sample of red supergiants (RSGs) in M31 and M33. The member stars of the two galaxies are selected from the near-infrared (NIR) point sources after removing the foreground dwarfs from their…
Detections of SiO masers from the Bulge Asymmetries and Dynamical Evolution (BAaDE) survey more tightly define the region where Oxygen-rich (O) Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars reside in multiple infrared (IR) color-color diagrams. Using…
Spectroscopic analyses of 7 SMC B-type supergiants and 1 giant have been undertaken using high resolution optical data obtained on the VLT with UVES. FASTWIND, a non-LTE, spherical,line-blanketed model atmosphere code was used to derive…
Brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) are among the most massive galaxies in the Universe. Their star formation (SF) history and stellar mass assembly are debated. Recent studies suggest the presence of an emerging population of…
An unexpected characteristic of low surface brightness galaxies (LSBGs) is that a significant number are massive and possess substantial amounts of atomic gas. We present preliminary results of an ongoing program to obtain BVRIJHK imaging,…
Context. Extremely reddened AGB stars lose mass at high rates of >10^-5 Msun/yr. This is the very last stage of AGB evolution, in which stars in the mass range 2.0--4.0 Msun (for solar metallicity) should have been converted to C stars…
Mass loss is an important activity for red supergiants (RSGs) which can influence their evolution and final fate. Previous estimations of mass loss rates (MLRs) of RSGs exhibit significant dispersion due to the difference in method and the…
Hot subdwarf (SD) stars are the stripped cores of red giant stars in transition to the white dwarf sequence. The B-type subdwarfs (sdB) are powered by helium fusion in the core, more evolved ones (sdO) by shell burning. Low mass SDs may…
Early-type galaxies (ETGs) show a bimodal distribution in key structural properties like stellar specific angular momentum, kinematic morphology, and nuclear surface brightness profiles. Slow rotator ETGs, mostly found in the densest…
Galaxies with stellar masses near M* contain the majority of stellar mass in the universe, and are therefore of special interest in the study of galaxy evolution. The Milky Way (MW) and Andromeda (M31) have present day stellar masses near…
Recent efforts to characterise the molecular gas content of brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) at intermediate redshift have revealed a sub-population of gas-rich systems, whose star formation activity is likely influenced by environmental…
Dwarf highly star-forming galaxies (SFGs) dominated the early Universe and are considered the main driver of its reionization. However, direct observations of these distant galaxies are mainly confined to rest-frame ultraviolet and visible…
LB-1 has recently been proposed to be a binary system at 4 kpc consisting of a B star of 8 Msol and a massive stellar black hole of 70 Msol. This finding challenges our current theories of massive star evolution and formation of BHs at…
With the exception of a few well-known and studied systems, the binary population of red supergiants (RSGs) remains relatively uncharacterized. Famous systems such as VV Cep, 31 Cyg and zeta Aur contain RSG + B star binaries and here we…
Stellar-mass black holes (BHs), with masses comparable to stars, are a major constituent of our Milky Way galaxy. This chapter describes the landscape of challenging, and long-sought efforts to identify these objects in the Galaxy. The…
Blue supergiants (BSGs) are key objects for understanding the evolution of massive stars. However, discrepancies between theoretical predictions and empirical observations have opened up important questions yet to be answered. Studying…
Galaxies in the Local Group span a factor of 15 in metallicity, ranging from the super-solar M31 to the Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte (WLM) galaxy, which is the lowest-metallicity (0.1xZsun) Local Group galaxy currently forming stars. Studies of…
We undertake an optical and ultraviolet spectroscopic analysis of a sample of 20 Galactic B0 - B5 supergiants of luminosity classes Ia, Ib, Iab and II. Fundamental stellar parameters are obtained from optical diagnostics and a critical…