Spectroscopic evolution of very massive stars at Z = 1/2.5 Zsun

TL;DR

This study models the spectroscopic evolution of very massive stars at half-solar metallicity, revealing their dominant spectral features and significant impact on the UV emission of young starbursts.

Contribution

It provides new evolutionary and synthetic spectral models for very massive stars at Z=1/2.5 Zsun, incorporating recent mass-loss recipes and analyzing their spectral signatures.

Findings

VMSs dominate optical and UV emission during their main sequence.

Spectra of VMSs are characterized by strong HeII emission and specific metal lines.

VMSs significantly influence the UV spectra of young starburst regions.

Abstract

Stars with masses in excess of 100 Msun are observed in the Local Universe, but they remain rare objects. Because of the shape of the mass function, they are expected to be present only in the most massive and youngest clusters. They may thus be formed in number in highly star-forming galaxies. Very massive stars (VMSs) experience strong stellar winds that are stronger than those of their less massive OB-type counterparts. These strong winds therefore need to be taken into account in evolutionary models and synthetic spectra to properly predict the appearance of VMS. We present evolutionary models computed with the code STAREVOL. They include a recent mass-loss recipe that is relevant for VMSs. We subsequently calculated atmosphere models and synthetic spectra along the resulting tracks with the code CMFGEN. We studied stars with masses between 150 and 400 Msun and focused on a metallicity Z=1/2.5Zsun. We studied the impact of our VMS spectra on the spectral energy distribution of young starbursts. We show that the optical and UV range is dominated by HeII 4686 and HeII 1640 emission for almost the entire main-sequence evolution of VMSs, in contrast to less massive stars. In the UV spectral range, carbon, nitrogen, and iron lines shape the spectra of VMSs, which appear for most of their evolution as WNh objects. The morphology of the synthetic spectra is similar to that of VMSs in the Large Magellanic Cloud. We show that stars with masses higher than 100 Msun emit nearly as much light as all other stars in young starbursts. The integrated UV spectrum of these starbursts is significantly affected by the presence of VMSs.