High-mass stars in the Galactic center Quintuplet cluster

A. Liermann1,2, W.-R. Hamann2, L. M. Oskinova2, H. Todt2

1 Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie Bonn, Germany
2 Institut für Physik und Astronomie, Universität Potsdam, Germany

The Galactic center region is heavily obscured by dust in the ultra-violet and visual. Recently, a catalog with near-infrared K-band spectra of massive stars located in the Quintuplet cluster at about 35 pc projected distance of the GC was presented. Among several O stars the cluster hosts a number of massive stars in their late evolutionary stages, i.e. Wolf-Rayet stars of the nitrogen (WN) and carbon (WC) sequence. Tailored analyses with the Potsdam models for expanding atmospheres (PoWR) are presented for the WN stars. We find that the stars belong to a group of rather cool (T ≈ 25−35 kK) but very luminous WNL stars (log(L/LSun) > 6.0). The derived stellar parameters are discussed in the context of stellar evolution and it is shown that the stars are descendants from massive stars with initial masses of Minit > 60 MSun.

Conference proceedings "The multi-wavelength view of hot, massive stars" Liège 2010
Bulletin de la Société Royale des Sciences de Liège

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