Spindown of massive main sequence stars in the Milky Way

TL;DR

This study investigates the rotational evolution of massive main sequence stars in the Milky Way, comparing models with observations to understand stellar wind effects and the role of binary interactions in stellar spin-down.

Contribution

The paper provides a detailed comparison of stellar wind-induced spindown models with observational data, highlighting discrepancies and suggesting binary evolution influences.

Findings

Models agree with observations for stars below ~40 M_sun.

Observed fast rotators are not fully explained by single star models.

Wind-induced spindown is complex and may involve binary interactions.

Abstract

Context. We need to understand the spin evolution of massive stars to compute their internal rotationally induced mixing processes, isolate effects of close binary evolution, and predict the rotation rates of white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes. Aims. We discuss the spindown of massive main sequence stars imposed by stellar winds. Methods. We use detailed grids of single star evolutionary models to predict the distribution of the surface rotational velocities of core-hydrogen burning Galactic massive stars as function of their mass and evolutionary state. We then compare the spin properties of our synthetic populations with appropriately selected sub-samples of Galactic main sequence OB-type stars extracted from the IACOB survey. Results. We find that below $\sim 40 M_\odot$, observations and models agree in finding that the surface rotational velocities of Galactic massive stars remain relatively constant during their main sequence evolution. The more massive stars in the IACOB sample appear to spin down less than predicted, while our updated angular momentum loss prescription predicts an enhanced spindown. Furthermore, the observations show a population of fast rotators, with $v \sin I \gtrsim 200$ km/s persisting for all ages, which is not reproduced by our synthetic single star populations. Conclusions. We conclude that the wind-induced spindown of massive main sequence stars is yet to be fully understood, and that close binary evolution might significantly contribute to the fraction of rapid rotators in massive stars.