Self-Obscured Dusty Massive Stars in Nearby Galaxies

Details Self-Obscured Dusty Massive Stars in Nearby Galaxies Self-Obscured Dusty Massive Stars in Nearby Galaxies

Jan 2012

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21922405k&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #224.05

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

When very massive evolved stars are optically obscured by dust from their own mass loss, much or even all of the stellar flux is re-emitted by their dusty envelopes leading to SEDs with peak luminosities in the mid-IR. The large, rich, publicly available Spitzer data-sets are ideal for identifying and studying such objects undergoing a very short but critical evolutionary phase. We present preliminary results from a systematic survey for rare, luminous, dusty, massive stars in nearby (D < 10 Mpc) galaxies. We identify the brightest mid-IR sources in archival Spitzer images, attempt to classify them and to characterize massive stellar population in the local neighborhood. We also present spectroscopic observations of "Object X", the brightest mid-IR star in the nearby galaxy M33, which has properties similar to those of the Galactic OH/IR star IRC+10420. The existence and rarity of these objects are an important probe of episodic mass loss in evolved massive stars. We consider their implication for our current understanding of massive stellar evolution.

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