A Spectroscopic Hunt for Post-Red Supergiants in the Large Magellanic Cloud II: Turbulent Line Broadening in the Spectra of LMC Yellow Supergiants

TL;DR

This study analyzes the spectral line profiles of 32 yellow supergiants in the Large Magellanic Cloud, revealing turbulent broadening and correlations with stellar properties, and compares observations with evolutionary models to understand massive star phases.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of turbulent line broadening in LMC yellow supergiants and links spectral features to stellar evolution stages and surface motions.

Findings

Line profiles are strongly broadened by turbulence.

Two groups identified based on velocity ratios.

Macroturbulent velocity correlates with stellar properties.

Abstract

Massive stars in the Hertzsprung gap are a mixed population of objects in short-lived evolutionary phases: yellow supergiants (YSGs) evolving towards the red supergiant (RSG) phase, partially-stripped post-RSGs, and other, rarer outcomes of stellar evolution. Studies of sufficiently large samples of these objects can constrain massive star structure and evolution during these poorly-understood phases. As part of our ongoing program searching for post-RSGs, we characterized the spectral line profiles of 32 YSGs in the Large Magellanic Cloud using high-resolution spectra obtained with the MIKE spectrograph on the Magellan 2/Clay telescope at Las Campanas Observatory. We find that the line profiles are strongly broadened by turbulent photospheric motion. After fitting the profiles to measure microturbulent and macroturbulent velocities, we identify two groups within our sample that are separated by the ratio of the two velocity scales. In both groups, the macroturbulent velocity scales with stellar properties such as effective temperature. Additionally, we find statistically-significant correlations between the macroturbulent velocity and other possible probes of large-scale photospheric motions: line profile asymmetry, as well as the amplitude and quality factor of the stochastic low frequency variability measured from {\it Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite} lightcurves. These correlations differ between the two groups of YSGs. Finally, we construct 1D evolutionary models of YSGs in both pre- and post-RSG phases, and find reasonable agreement between the convective velocities in these models and our measured microturbulent velocities. However, the macroturbulent velocities are much higher than the convective velocities in the models.