Quantitative spectroscopy of late O-type main-sequence stars with a hybrid non-LTE method

TL;DR

This study applies a hybrid non-LTE spectral analysis method to late O-type main-sequence stars, achieving high precision in fundamental parameters and elemental abundances, and demonstrating the method's effectiveness compared to full non-LTE models.

Contribution

It introduces and tests a hybrid non-LTE approach for analyzing late O-type stars, providing improved accuracy and efficiency over traditional full non-LTE methods.

Findings

High precision in stellar parameters (1-3% in temperature, 0.05-0.10 dex in gravity)

Significant effects of turbulent pressure on atmospheric modeling

Accurate elemental abundances with uncertainties of 0.05-0.10 dex

Abstract

Context. Late O-type stars at luminosities $\log L/L_\odot \lesssim 5.2$ show weak winds with mass-loss rates lower than 10$^{-8} M_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$. This implies that their photospheric layers are not strongly affected by the stellar wind. Aims. A hybrid non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE) approach is tested for analyses of late O-type stars. A sample of 20 mostly sharp-lined Galactic O stars of spectral types O8 to O9.7 and luminosity classes V and IV, previously studied in the literature using full non-LTE model atmospheres, is investigated. Methods. Hydrostatic plane-parallel atmospheric structures and synthetic spectra computed with Kurucz's Atlas12 code together with non-LTE line-formation codes Detail and Surface, which account for the effects of turbulent pressure on the atmosphere, were employed. High-resolution spectra were analysed to derive atmospheric parameters and elemental abundances. Fundamental stellar parameters were derived by considering stellar evolution tracks and Gaia EDR3 parallaxes. Interstellar reddening was characterised by fitting spectral energy distributions from the UV to the mid-IR. Results. A high precision and accuracy is achieved for all derived parameters for 16 sample stars. Turbulent pressure effects turn out have significant effects. Effective temperatures are determined to 1-3% uncertainty levels, surface gravities to 0.05 to 0.10 dex, masses to better than 8%, radii to better than 10%, and luminosities to better than 20% uncertainty typically. Abundances for C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Al, Si are derived with uncertainties of 0.05 to 0.10 dex and for helium within 0.03 to 0.05 dex (1$\sigma$ standard deviations) in general. Distances to the Lac OB1b association and to the open clusters NGC 2244, IC 1805, NGC 457, and IC 1396 are determined as a byproduct.