Red supergiants in M31 and M33 II. The Mass Loss Rate

Tianding Wang, Biwei Jiang, Yi Ren, Ming Yang, Jun Li

Published 2021-03-09Version 1

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 incompleteness of sample. With the improved quality and depth of the surveys including the UKIRT/WFCAM observation in near infrared, LGGS and PS1 in optical, a rather complete sample of RSGs is identified in M31 and M33 according to their brightness and colors. For about 2000 objects in either galaxy from this ever largest sample, the MLR is derived by fitting the observational optical-to-mid infrared spectral energy distribution (SED) with the DUSTY code of a 1-D dust radiative transfer model. The average MLR of RSGs is found to be around $2.0\times10^{-5}{\text{M}_\odot}/\text{yr}$ with a gas-to-dust ratio of 100, which yields a total contribution to the interstellar dust by RSGs of about $1.1\times10^{-3}{\text{M}_\odot}/\text{yr}$ in M31 and $6.0 \times10^{-4}{\text{M}_\odot}/\text{yr}$ in M33, a non-negligible source in comparison with evolved low-mass stars. The MLRs are divided into three types by the dust properties, i.e. amorphous silicate, amorphous carbon and optically thin, and the relations of MLR with stellar parameters, infrared flux and colors are discussed and compared with previous works for the silicate and carbon dust group respectively.