Evolutionary helium and CNO anomalies in the atmospheres and winds of massive hot stars

Technical Report · Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 1987

OSTI ID:6649382

Walborn, N R

The ubiquitous evidence for processed materials in the atmospheres, winds, and circumstellar ejecta of massive stars is reviewed. A broad array of normal and peculiar evolutionary stages is considered, up to and including Type II supernova progenitors. The quantitative analysis of these spectra is difficult, and until recently for the most part only qualitative or approximate results have been available. However, several important current programs promise reliable abundance calculations. A significant emerging result is that the morphologically normal majority of both hot and cold supergiants may already display an admixture of CNO-cycle products in their atmospheres. It may become possible in this way to identify blue supergiants returning from the red supergiant region, as appears to have been the case for the SN 1987A progenitor.

• Research Organization: Space Telescope Science Inst., Baltimore, MD (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6649382
• Report Number(s): N-88-30550; NASA-CR-183254; NAS-1.26:183254; PPS-202
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
STELLAR ATMOSPHERES
ABSORPTION SPECTRA
CYANOGEN
HELIUM
STELLAR WINDS
SUPERGIANT STARS
SUPERNOVAE
ABUNDANCE
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
ATMOSPHERES
DATA
ELEMENTS
ERUPTIVE VARIABLE STARS
FLUIDS
GASES
GIANT STARS
INFORMATION
NONMETALS
NUMERICAL DATA
RARE GASES
SPECTRA
STARS
STELLAR ACTIVITY
VARIABLE STARS
640102* - Astrophysics & Cosmology- Stars & Quasi-Stellar
Radio & X-Ray Sources