We add four warmer late-type supergiants to our previous
spectro-interferometric studies of red giants and supergiants.
V766 Cen (=HR 5171 A) is found to be a high-luminosity log(L/L_sun)=5.8+-0.4
source of Teff 4290+-760 K and radius 1490+-540 Rsun located close to both the
Hayashi and Eddington limits; this source is consistent with a 40 Msun
evolutionary track without rotation and current mass 27-36 Msun. It exhibits
NaI in emission arising from a shell of radius 1.5 Rphot and a photocenter
displacement of about 0.1 Rphot. V766 Cen shows strong extended molecular (CO)
layers and a dusty circumstellar background component. This suggest an
optically thick pseudo-photosphere at about 1.5 Rphot at the onset of the wind.
V766 Cen is a red supergiant located close to the Hayashi limit instead of a
yellow hypergiant already evolving back toward warmer Teff as previously
discussed.
The stars sigma Oph, BM Sco, and HD 206859 are found to have lower
luminosities of about log(L/Lsun)=3.4-3.5 and Teff of 3900-5300 K,
corresponding to 5-9 Msun tracks. They do not show extended molecular layers as
observed for higher luminosity red supergiants of our sample. BM Sco shows an
unusually strong contribution by an over-resolved circumstellar dust component.
These stars are more likely high-mass red giants instead of red supergiants.
This leaves us with an unsampled locus in the HR diagram corresponding to
luminosities log(L/Lsun)~3.8-4.8 or masses 10-13 Msun, possibly corresponding
to the mass region where stars explode as type II-P supernovae during the RSG
stage.
Our previously found relation of increasing strength of extended molecular
layers with increasing luminosities is now confirmed to extend to double our
previous luminosities and up to the Eddington limit. This might further point
to steadily increasing radiative winds with increasing luminosity.
[Abridged]Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysics (A&A
