IvS Seminar: Olivier Verhamme (16/05/2024)

Olivier Verhamme - "Empirical mass loss rates and clumping behaviour of B-Supergiants" (IvS seminar 16/05/2024)

Abstract: Mass-loss of massive stars is an uncertain, but very important part of stellar evolution as massive stars lose a significant amount of mass even in their main sequence. Currently, stellar evolution models include mass-loss in the form of a mass-loss prescription based on models from 2001. This prescription includes a sudden increase of mass-loss for stars cooler than 25000K. To test this behaviour it is important to not only study mass-loss features in optical spectra but also in the UV, as they include important wind diagnostics such as terminal wind speed and give us the ability to determine clumping properties independent from mass-loss rates.
I will present the results of a study into a sample of LMC B-supergiants where we studied the mass-loss rate and the clumping parameters. I will be focusing on how the empirical mass-loss rates show a problem with the current mass-loss prescription and what we can conclude about the clumping behaviour of these stars.