Mapping the Youngest and Most Massive Stars in the Tarantula Nebula with MUSE-NFM
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Astronomical Science DOI: 10.18727/0722-6691/5223 Mapping the Youngest and Most Massive Stars in the Tarantula Nebula with MUSE-NFM Norberto Castro 1 Myrs, but in very dramatic ways. The are to unveil the nature of the most mas- Martin M. Roth 1 energy released during their short lives, sive stars, to constrain the role of these Peter M. Weilbacher 1 and their deaths in supernova explosions, parameters in their evolution, and to pro- Genoveva Micheva 1 shape the chemistry and dynamics of vide homogeneous results and landmarks Ana Monreal-Ibero 2, 3 their host galaxies. Ever since the reioni- for the theory. Spectroscopic surveys Andreas Kelz1 sation of the Universe, massive stars have transformed the field in this direc- Sebastian Kamann4 have been significant sources of ionisa- tion, yielding large samples for detailed Michael V. Maseda 5 tion. Nonetheless, the evolution of mas- quantitative studies in the Milky Way (for Martin Wendt 6 sive O- and B-type stars is far from being example, Simón-Díaz et al., 2017) and in and the MUSE collaboration well understood, a lack of knowledge that the nearby Magellanic Clouds (for exam- is even worse for the most massive stars ple, Evans et al., 2011). However, massive (Langer, 2012). These missing pieces in stars are rarer than smaller stars, and 1 Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, our understanding of the formation and very massive stars (> 70 M☉) are even Germany evolution of massive stars propagate to rarer. The empirical distribution of stars 2 Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, other fields in astrophysics. Supernova on the upper part of the Hertzsprung- La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain rates, ionisation radiation, and chemical Russell (HR) diagram remains questiona- 3 Departamento de Astrofísica, yields will depend on the evolutionary ble and more data are essential. Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, paths of massive stars. Ultimately, under- Spain standing the evolution of star-forming gal- The heart of the Tarantula nebula (NGC 4 Astrophysics Research Institute, axies depends first and foremost on our 2070) in the Large Magellanic Cloud Liverpool John Moores University, UK ability to constrain the evolution of mas- (LMC) is intrinsically the brightest 5 Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, sive stars. the Netherlands 6 Institut für Physik und Astronomie, Stellar evolution is mainly governed by Figure 1. Colour-composite mosaic (RGB: I, R and V filters) of nine of the fields observed with MUSE-NFM Universität Potsdam, Germany the initial mass. Nevertheless, other fac- in the core of NGC 2070. Image quality ranges tors can play a significant role. Metallicity, between 50 and 80 milliarcseconds, akin to the spa- rotational velocity, duplicity or strong stel- tial resolution of the HST. The HST image in the The evolution of the most massive stars lar winds affect their lifetimes (Maeder & F555W band (Sabbi et al., 2013) is displayed in the background. The inset image is a zoom into the core is a puzzle with many missing pieces. Meynet, 2000; Langer, 2012). Large of R136 (marked by a circle in the mosaic) resolving Statistical analyses are key to providing systematic surveys are fundamental if we R136a1, 2 and 3 WR stars. anchors to calibrate theory, but per- forming these studies is an arduous job. The state-of-the-art integral field spec- trograph Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) has stirred up stellar R136a1 astrophysicists, who are excited about R136a2 its ability to take spectra of up to a R136a3 thousand stars in a single exposure. N 1 arcsecond The excitement was even greater E with the commissioning of the MUSE narrow- field mode (MUSE-NFM) that has demonstrated angular resolution akin to that of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We present the first mapping of the dense stellar core R136 in the Tarantula nebula based on a MUSE-NFM mosaic. We aim to deliver the first homogeneous analysis of the most massive stars in the local Universe and to explore the impact of these peculiar objects on the interstellar medium (ISM). N Resolving the heart of NGC 2070 with MUSE-NFM 7.5 arcseconds The evolution of the Universe is tied to E massive stars. They live fast, only a few 50 The Messenger 182 | 2021 1e–14 Figure 2. Representative OB stars extracted from the 1.0 Teff = 46 000 (K) central field of the R136 cluster (blue). The stars were 0.8 modelled (orange) with a dedicated FASTWIND grid (Puls et al., 2005). The effective temperature and key diagnostic lines are also indicated. The areas that 4800 4900 5000 5100 5200 5300 5400 5500 1e–15 could be affected by the sky subtraction are high- 1.5 Teff = 39 000 (K) lighted (grey shading). 1.0 MUSE-NFM and mosaicked the R136 –1 Å 4800 4900 5000 5100 5200 5300 5400 5500 2 1e–15 cluster from a total of nine pointings. The 1.5 Teff = 36 000 (K) cm tenth one was centred on the Wolf-Rayet –1 (WR) system R140. The outstanding per- s I I I II 1.0 III] III] β rg H He He He [O [O He formance of MUSE-NFM and its associ- (e 4800 4900 5000 5100 5200 5300 5400 5500 ated Ground Atmospheric Layer Adaptive 1e–15 Flux optiCs for Spectroscopic Imaging Teff = 23 000 (K) 2.0 (GALACSI) module in combination with 1.5 the Adaptive Optics Facility of the VLT 4800 4900 5000 5100 5200 5300 5400 5500 provides a spatial resolution that is similar 1e–15 2.0 T = 16 000 (K) to that of the HST (~ 0.07 arcseconds), eff but with spectroscopic information for 1.5 each single pixel (see Figure 1). A peak in 1.0 the centre of the cluster reveals how the 4800 4900 5000 5100 5200 5300 5400 5500 Wavelength (Å) spatial resolution is sufficient to resolve the WR stars R136a1, 2, and 3 (see the inset in Figure 1). star-forming region in the Local Group. stars in the vicinity of R136. However, the Its proximity makes it a perfect laboratory R136 cluster is impossible to resolve with in which to resolve the stellar population MUSE-WFM. R136 cluster: dissecting and modelling and test evolutionary theories. NGC 2070 hosts the most massive stars reported MUSE-NFM, commissioned in 2018 MUSE-NFM has unveiled a treasure-trove in the literature (Crowther et al., 2010), (Leibundgut et al., 2019), has opened a of OB stars to advance our understand- enclosing the massive cluster R136 at its window for optical stellar spectroscopy ing of the stellar evolution of very massive core. Understandably, NGC 2070 has been that until now was only available to the stars. Based on the integrated light of the of great interest to stellar astrophysicists, HST. The field of view of 7.5 × 7.5 arcsec- MUSE-NFM data cubes, we created a and it is considered the Rosetta Stone of onds and an expected spatial resolution new catalogue of the stellar content of the field (Schneider et al., 2018). However, close to that of the HST offer unique the cluster. The MUSE-NFM catalogue in light of the severe stellar crowding in capabilities for mapping R136. These lists approximately 1900 sources in ten the core of NGC 2070, the R136 cluster capabilities have been successfully tested fields, with a cutoff in the V band at has largely been omitted from many opti- during ESO programme 0104.D-0084. ~ 22 magnitudes. A first crossmatch with cal surveys (Evans et al., 2011). We observed ten fields in NGC 2070 with the Hubble Tarantula Treasury Project The integral field spectrograph (IFS) MUSE (Bacon et al., 2014) on the VLT is capable of resolving crowded stellar Figure 3. Distribution of fields and taking high-quality spectra of 120 the representative OB thousands of stars in the dense cores of 4.0 stars (see Figure 2) in 60 the spectroscopic HR globular clusters (Kamann et al., 2016). diagram (Langer & In fact, this capability has even been 40 Kudritzki, 2014). The 32 positions of the O-type exploited out to nearby galaxies (Roth, ) 3.5 and early B-type stars L Weilbacher & Castro, 2019). The large / (blue dots) mainly match L 20 field of view and sensitivity of MUSE have the expected young age allowed us to systematically analyse large log( 15 of NGC 2070, approxi- stellar populations in unprecedented 3.0 mately 2 Myr (for exam- detail, and to study the ISM (for example, 12 ple, Schneider et al., 2018). Rotating evolu- Weilbacher et al., 2018; Roth et al., 2018). 9 tionary tracks from Castro et al. (2018a) presented MUSE log(Age [yr]) = 6.0 Ekström et al. (2012) 2.5 log(Age [yr]) = 6.5 wide-field-mode (MUSE-WFM) observa- 7 M are included in the plot log(Age [yr]) = 7.0 tions of the central part of NGC 2070. (dotted black lines). The isochrones were This work provided a homogeneous 4.84.7 4.64.5 4.44.3 4.24.1 calculated using the 1 spectroscopic census of the massive log(Teff [K]) SYCLIST online tool. The Messenger 182 | 2021 51 Astronomical Science Castro N. et al., Mapping Stars in the Tarantula Nebula with MUSE-NFM Figure 4. O+O spectroscopic binary resolved with 1.3 300 Field B MUSE-NFM. On the left, the kinematic evolution Field D 200 of He II 5411 Å (black line) at different epochs in ) x 1.2 –1 overlapping fields. We perform a preliminary charac- s flu terisation of the binary using Gaussian models m 100 (k 1.1 Field C (coloured lines). On the right, the velocity of each 65 0 component is displayed.