X-Shooting ULLYSES: Massive Stars at low metallicity IX: Empirical constraints on mass-loss rates and clumping parameters for OB supergiants in the Large Magellanic Cloud

TL;DR

This study uses UV and optical spectroscopy of OB supergiants in the LMC to empirically test mass-loss rates and wind clumping, finding no evidence for the predicted bistability jump and highlighting the importance of wind clumping in stellar evolution models.

Contribution

It provides the first empirical constraints on mass-loss rates and wind clumping for OB supergiants in the LMC, challenging the theoretical bistability jump assumption.

Findings

No empirical evidence of a mass-loss jump in the studied temperature range.

Standard models overpredict mass-loss rates on the cool side of the predicted jump.

Approximately 40% of wind mass resides in the interclump medium.

Abstract

Context. Current implementations of mass loss for hot, massive stars in stellar evolution models include a sharp increase in mass loss when blue supergiants become cooler than Teff 20-22kK. This drastic mass-loss jump has been motivated by the potential presence of a so-called bistability ionisation effect, which may occur for line-driven winds in this temperature region due to recombination of important line-driving ions. Aims. We perform quantitative spectroscopy using UV (ULLYSES program) and optical (XShootU collaboration) data for 17 OB-supergiant stars in the LMC (covering the range Teff 14-32kK), deriving absolute constraints on global stellar, wind, and clumping parameters. We examine whether there are any empirical signs of a mass-loss jump in the investigated region, and we study the clumped nature of the wind. Methods. We use a combination of the model atmosphere code fastwind and the genetic algorithm code Kiwi-GA to fit synthetic spectra of a multitude of diagnostic spectral lines in the optical and UV. Results. We find no signs of any upward mass loss jump anywhere in the examined region. Standard theoretical comparison models, which include a strong bistability jump thus severely over predict the empirical mass-loss rates on the cool side of the predicted jump. Additionally, we find that on average about 40% of the total wind mass seems to reside in the diluted medium in between dense clumps. Conclusions. Our derived mass-loss rates suggest that for applications like stellar evolution one should not include a drastic bistability jump in mass loss for stars in the temperature and luminosity region investigated here. The derived high values of interclump density further suggest that the common assumption of an effectively void interclump medium (applied in the vast majority of spectroscopic studies of hot star winds) is not generally valid in this parameter regime.