Mass Loss: Its Effect on the Evolution and Fate of High-Mass Stars

“Since massive stars have short lifetimes, their ultraviolet (UV) radiation (reprocessed in various forms) is the most observable tracer of star formation and is used to calculate the star formation rates (Kennicutt 1998, Kennicutt & Evans 2012).”

“Perhaps new open-source codes like MESA (Paxton et al. 2011) will facilitate this.”

“This single-star paradigm then permitted one to extend even further, to compute models for the collective radiative output of entire stellar populations as a function of age (e.g., codes like starburst99; Leitherer et al. 1999).”

“Later, estimates for the solar wind (Parker 1958) powered by hot gas pressure had such low mass-loss rates that winds would not matter much in stellar evolution.”

“Since massive stars have short lifetimes, their ultraviolet (UV) radiation (reprocessed in various forms) is the most observable tracer of star formation and is used to calculate the star formation rates (Kennicutt 1998, Kennicutt & Evans 2012).”

“They leave behind exotic corpses such as black holes, neutron stars, pulsars, magnetars, and all the bizarre high-energy phenomena that occur when compact objects remain bound in a binary system (e.g., Remillard & McClintock 2006).”

“The fact that GRB progenitors have shed most of their envelopes while still retaining a great deal of angular momentum (MacFadyen & Woosley 1999) would seem to strongly favor their origin in binary evolution with mass transfer to spin up the star, or even a merger.”

“…very massive, and they made the first SNe, the first stellar mass black holes, the first dust, ejected the first metals back into the ISM, enhanced or dominated reionization, and probably triggered the formation of the earliest generations of low-mass stars (Bromm & Larson 2004, Heger et al. 2003).”

“…from several young clusters suggest that, when corrected for obervational bias, the fraction of massive stars in binary systems whose orbital period is so short that the stars must exhange mass or merge is something like 3/4 (Kiminki & Kobulnicky 2012, Kobulnicky & Fryer 2007, Sana et al. 2012).”

“The efficiency of the acceleration also depends on the fractional abundance of metal ions, line optical depths and the amount of small-scale density inhomogeneities, which leads to lower mass-loss rates in early-O and late-type B stars (Lucy and Solomon 1970; Smith 2014).”

“All massive stars exhibit winds that pollute their environments with gas and dust (Smith 2014), and this material can lead to significant circumstellar extinction when the wind is dense, clumpy, and relatively cool.”

“The large mass-loss rates derived for SN IIn progenitors and observed in SN IMs are not explicable solely in terms of steady, metal line-driven winds (Smith 2014b).”

“Material surrounding the star as it approaches CC can dramatically affect both the appearance of the progenitor and the observable properties of the SN (e.g., Kochanek et al. 2012; Smith 2014; Davies et al. 2022).”

“We treat the uncertainty in the winds (Smith 2014, for a review) by multiplying the mass-loss rate by a universal factorη = 0.1, 0.3, 3 in our model variations.”

“The velocities inferred from the spectra are among the highest observed for stripped-envelope SNe, and are most similar to the velocities of Ic-BL SNe accompanied by GRBs. 9.”

“Having said that, there is plenty of evidence showing that core-collapse supernovae from massive stars may commonly occur in binary star systems (Smith 2014), and binary interactions indeed have the effect of pushing the delay time distribution toward larger delay times (Zapartas et al. 2017).”

“…to be a key for these SNe IIb (e.g., Benvenuto et al. 2013) and that the mass loss rate is affected substantially by the binary interaction (e.g., Smith 2014, for a review), this suggests that there is a difference in the binary interaction history for these two classes, reflecting differences…”

“In particular, the last months to years of a massive star’s life prior to explosion are poorly understood (see Smith 2014 for a review).”

“Moreover, the LyC from stars at m > 100 M⊙ may not escape the embedded cloud from which they formed, or from the dense gas produced in mass-loss episodes or binary mergers (Smith 2014).”

“First, progenitor stars are likely to be members of interacting binary systems (e.g., Sana et al. 2012; Smith 2014), intrinsically multidimensional (e.g., Arnett & Meakin 2011; Couch et al. 2015) and with a degree of rotation yet to be convincingly established (e.g., Fuller et al. 2015).”

“On the other hand, if the progenitor loses its mass gradually, i.e. via wind, adiabatic invariants should be preserved and the binary separation will adjust accordingly to accommodate the mass loss, allowing the binary to remain gravitationally bound (Smith 2014).”

“However, the recent observations of extragalactic supernovae have showed that significant mass losses ubiquitously occur before the explosion (123).”

“We assume a wind scaling factor of 1 (Smith 2014; Renzo et al. 2017).”

“…dusty evolved stars such as luminous blue variables, Wolf-Rayet stars, red supergiants, and supergiant B[e] stars are prolific dust producers (Smith 2014; Bonanos et al. 2010; Kastner et al. 2006; Voors et al. 2000; Smith et al. 2003), though it is uncertain how much, if any, dust will…”

“Type IIn SNe are rare, and only account for ∼9% of the entire Type II SNe population (Smith 2014).”

“This is also a wider problem for massive star evolution, including hot star winds and luminous blue variables (LBVs, Smith 2014).”

“…Langer, Garcı́aSegura & Mac Low 1999; Woosley, Blinnikov & Heger 2007; Arnett & Meakin 2011; Chatzopoulos & Wheeler 2012; Moriya & Langer 2014; Shiode & Quataert 2014) can all lead to the formation of extended circumstellar environments (for reviews on this topic, see Langer 2012 and Smith 2014).”

“…starlight-powered winds are very strong and fast, and can dramatically affect the star’s atmospheric structure (review by Puls et al. 2008) as well as the evolution of its mass and luminosity, chemical surface abundances, rotational velocity, and nuclear burning life-times (review by Smith 2014).”

“…reduce the star’s mass too much at Z⊙) may not be such a concern, since mass-loss rates adopted in most stellar evolution models are too high anyway (Smith 2014), and since other effects such as rotational mixing or binary interaction can influence the mapping of initial mass to final He core…”

“Most estimates, including those used in this work are expected to be overestimated due to clumping in the winds (Smith 2014).”

“Indeed, we run a test simulation assuming both η = 1/3 (e.g., Smith 2014) and Z = 0.0055 and find similar but stronger trends than varying each of these two parameters independently.”

“Mass loss is according to Vink et al. (2001), with a reduction factor of 0.33 (for a review on mass loss see Smith 2014).”

“More massive LBV stars may also be able to supply the required amount of CSM mass (Smith 2014; Smith & Owocki 2006).”

“For radiation-driven winds, mass-loss rate prescriptions are often described as luminosity dependent ( see, for example, the review by Smith 2014 ) .”

“LBV nebulae exhibit outflow velocities of ∼100 km s−1 (Smith 2014), which are consistent with the observational constraints on the CSM The Astrophysical Journal, 833:231 (17pp), 2016 December 20 Tinyanont et al. velocity (100 km s−1; Milisavljevic et al. 2015) and imply a dynamical timescale of 100…”

“I re- PASA (2016) doi:10.1017/pas.2016.xxx fer the reader to the review by Smith (2014) for a detailed discussion of stellar wind mass-loss.”

“The treatment of stellar winds is one of the key aspects affecting the final mass of BHs and is subject to a number of uncertainties [129].”

“Recent examples include the 2011 transient in NGC4490 (NGC 4490 OT2011-1; Smith et al. 2016) and the 2015 event in M101 (M101 OT2015-1; Blagorodnova et al. 2017).”

“Again, this suggests that radiatively driven eruptive mass loss might occur even at low metallicity (e.g., Smith 2014).”

“Radial expansion of massive stars can be quenched due to extensive mass loss in stellar winds (e.g., Conti 1975; Vanbeveren 1991; Vanbeveren et al. 1998; Langer 2012; Smith 2014).”

“…of the LBV phase in stellar evolution: SNe IIn require interactions with an circumstellar medium (CSM) with masses and densities only achievable with giant eruptions, stellar winds alone would be too weak for this purpose (Smith 2014), although this has been questioned as well (Dwarkadas 2011).”

“…of their wide range of possible progenitors, including very massive stars in the tail of the initial mass function (e.g., Gal-Yam & Leonard 2009; Smith 2014; Thöne et al. 2017) and observationally, because of their diverse photometric properties (e.g., Taddia et al. 2013; Richardson et al.…”

“As noted in a recent review, these prescriptions fail to account for clumpiness and inhomogeneities in outflows and may overestimate mass loss rates by a factor of 2–3 (Smith 2014).”

“…range of pre-explosion wind speeds, ranging from red super giants (RSGs) with tens of km/s (e.g., Smith et al. 2009) to luminous blue variables (LBVs) with few hundred km/s, to stripped WolfRayet (W-R) stars with thousands of km/s (see Smith 2014 for a review of massive star mass loss properties).”

“The inferred mass-loss rate of Ṁ & 10−4M yr−1 is much higher than that observed in Galactic Wolf-Rayet stars (Smith 2014).”

“Again, these results are indicative of an LBV progenitor affected by large mass ejections (see e.g. Smith 2014).”

“We find that typical immortal stars have escape velocities in excess of 108 cm s−1, not unlike massive OB stars (Lamers & Cassinelli 1999; Smith 2014).”

“Strong winds or eruptive events are typical phenomena that lead massive stars to lose large amounts of material during the ark of their lives (e.g., de Jager et al. 1988; Vink et al. 2001; Mauron & Josselin 2011; Smith 2014).”

“Evolved massive stars are also expected to lose mass via eruptive events, e.g. LBV-type mass loss, beyond the HumphreysDavidson limit (Humphreys & Davidson 1979; Langer 2012; Smith 2014).”

“Galaxies in the lower right quadrant are red sequence ETGs with a “UV excess” (UVX; Smith 2014), while galaxies in the lower left are thought to have blue UV colors originating from residual star formation (RSF).”

“It may also explain the so-called RSG problem, i.e., a lack of SN IIP progenitors with MZAMS 18 Me (Smartt 2009, 2015).”

“Phenomenological Model In cases of well-observed Type IIn SNe such as SN 2010jl, parameters on SN dynamics can be determined by the observational data of (mostly) thermal emission from the SNe.”

“…mass loss in evolved massive stars challenges our current understanding of massive star evolution and points to a new evolutionary path where nuclear burning instabilities and interaction with a binary companion play primary roles (e.g., Quataert & Shiode 2012; Smith 2014; Smith & Arnett 2014).”

“Stellar winds accompanied by extreme or eruptive mass loss can shed significant amounts of gas over the lifetime of massive stars, (e.g., Heger et al. 2003; Smith & Owocki 2006); however the mass loss rates for these tend to be overestimated (Smith 2014).”

“M M10 14 yr−1 and vw∼100–1000 km s −1 are typically inferred by modeling interacting SNe (e.g., Smith 2014), corresponding to A; 1–105Aå for fΩ∼1, where Aå≡5×10 11 g cm−2 is a fiducial value for = -”

“…shell-burning episodes during pre-SN evolution, as stars could swell in radius or pulsate in response to shell burning and in turn initiate stellar interactions, mass-transfer episodes, and even discrete eruptions (Shiode & Quataert 2014; Smith & Arnett 2014; Smith 2014, and references therein).”

“To address this excess of luminosity, popular models invoke either strong shocks due to interaction with the circumstellar medium (Smith 2014; Inserra et al. 2017) or an energy injection by a central engine at late times (Kasen & Bildsten 2010; Inserra et al. 2013).”

“By contrast,Ic-BL SNe such as SN 2006aj and SN 2020bvc are thought to arise from compact stars, so the envelope is more likely to be extended material that was ejected in a mass-loss episode (Smith 2014).”

“…mass of the progenitor star and its ZAMS mass that exist anyway in single stellar evolution, including the mass-loss rate through winds (e.g., Smith 2014; Renzo et al. 2017), the overshooting of the convective core (e.g., Ribas et al. 2000; Claret 2007; Brott et al. 2011b; Straniero et al.…”

“A density profile steeper than a steady wind was inferred for CSS 161010 (Coppejans et al. 2020), and—as discussed for that object—implies nonsteady mass loss (Smith 2014).”

“…channel for SNe exploding in this fashion (e.g. Eldridge, Izzard & Tout 2008; Dessart et al. 2011; Smith et al. 2011; Lyman et al. 2014; see also Smith 2014 and references therein), with the companion facilitating enhanced mass loss due to its gravitational presence (e.g. Podsiadlowski, Joss &…”

“…SNe and their environmental impacts, which in turn have consequences for the formation and evolution of stellar populations (Eldridge et al. 2008; Smith 2014), the metal enrichment of galaxies (Vogelsberger et al. 2014; Nelson et al. 2019), and the origin of planetary systems (Dwek 1998; Nittler…”

“Both of these values are several orders of magnitude above the most extreme mass-loss rates produced by steady winds from stars, but they are not far from the timeaveraged eruptive mass-loss rates from LBVs (which may well exhibit much higher instantaneous mass-loss rates; Smith 2014).”

“However they do not include any correction for wind clumping, which observations suggest may produce a factor of three reduction in mass-loss rates M (Smith 2014).”

“Note that mass-loss rates are uncertain by a factor of 2–3 (e.g. Muijres et al. 2012; Smith 2014; Puls, Sundqvist & Markova 2015; Keszthelyi, Puls & Wade 2017), and these models should be considered in this light.”

“It is thought that the progenitors of Type IIb SNe have been stripped of all but ∼ 0.1M of their H envelope (Smith 2014), highlighting the importance of mass loss, either through winds or binary interaction to the origin of the subtypes in the SN classification scheme (Nomoto et al. 1996).”

“Most massive stars are found in binary systems (Smith 2014) where most SNe Ic occur and which favor the deployment of hydrogen and helium from the SN progenitors (Smith et al. 2011), and the SNe associated with long GRBs are indeed of Type Ic (Della Valle 2011).”

“For late-time mass transfers (cases B and C; Smith 2014), the He-core mass, which is the main determinant for the final pre-SN structure (Sukhbold & Woosley 2014), is not appreciably affected by the mass transfer.”

“Dynamical ages of shells of matter around luminous blue variable stars (LBV) – likely progenitors of SNe IIn – range from hundreds years to several thousand years (see Smith 2014, and references therein).”

“While this process is important for the evolution of massive stars (Smith 2014), the conditions in subsurface convective zones and the properties of convection depend almost exclusively from the location in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.”

“…observedCCSN lightcurves, it cannot explain the exceptionally high luminosities of superluminous supernovae (Nicholl et al. 2013; Greiner et al. 2015) unless considering the formation of strong shocks produced by the interaction with dense circumstellar material (Smith 2014; Inserra et al. 2017).”

“These calculations use the wind prescriptions of Vink et al. (2001), which are thought to overestimate the mass-loss rates, Mw , by a factor of 2–3 (Smith 2014); = p M2w w w would also be affected by this.”

“…include eruptive bursts of mass loss (Smith & Owocki 2006), extensive RSG mass loss through surface instability (Yoon & Cantiello 2010), wave-driven mass loss during the end stages of nuclear burning (Quataert & Shiode 2012) and/or turbulent convection driven by dynamical instability (Smith 2014).”

“This is more than three orders of magnitude higher than those predicted by theoretical models (Smith 2014, see their Figure 3).”

“…SN sites, derived from H II regions in the host galaxies, reveal a possible trend for more H-deficient SNe arising in more metal rich environments (Prieto et al. 2008; Anderson et al. 2010; Modjaz et al. 2011), which could in turn be related to the mass loss rates of the progenitors (Smith 2014).”

“The mass loss rate Ṁ from a massive star can be expressed as Ṁ = 4πr(2) ∞ρ(r∞)v∞, where ρ(r∞) is the average mass density of the star at a distance r∞ from the centre where the wind speed vwind has reached terminal velocity v∞ (Smith 2014).”

“The typical pre-SN massloss rates for progenitors that become SNe IIn are greater than 10−4 M⊙ yr −1, and can in some cases be 1 M⊙ yr −1 or more, for superluminous SNe IIn (SLSNe IIn) and even some normal SNe IIn (Smith 2014).”

“…ambient medium; however, the precise degree to which this mechanism is operational and effective for GRB progenitors remains an open question (Weaver et al. 1977; Marston 1997; Moore et al. 2000; Ramirez-Ruiz et al. 2001; Chevalier et al. 2004; Krause et al. 2013; Smith 2014; Margutti et al. 2017).”

“For massive stars, wind mass loss and its role in stellar evolution is particularly important (see e.g. Smith 2014; Renzo et al. 2017).”

“Estimates of the rates of W-R explosions (Smith 2014; Perley et al. 2022) are often orders of magnitude higher than the rates of SNe Ibn (Maeda & Moriya 2022).”

“We note that this argument may break down for shells that are sufficiently dense to cause significant radiative losses (Crowther 2007; Pan et al. 2013; Smith 2014).”

“This would then require a luminous blue variable (LBV) undergoing eruptive mass loss (Smith 2014).”

“Thielemann et al. (1996) used a larger reaction network, but investigated only solar-metallicity stars, had a lower number of mass points in their grid and, again, did not consider the effects of mass loss during the pre-SN evolution.”

“The mass loss is controlled by some combination of intrinsic effects such as winds and extrinsic effects such as binary mass transfer (see the review by Smith 2014).”