UNVEILING THE ENVIRONMENTS OF EXTREME MASSIVE STARS

Abstract

Massive stars are powerful cosmic engines, enriching their environments with energy and mass throughout their lifetime. The post-main sequence evolution of massive stars comprises several distinct states, such as the luminous blue variables, blue supergiants, red supergiants, Wolf-Rayet stars, B[e] supergiants and yellow hypergiants, many of them connected with intense mass loss, embedding the stars in a dense environment. Here we present an overview of our studies for members in three states of evolved massive stars: B[e] supergiants, luminous blue variables, and yellow hypergiants. Combining high-quality spectral and imaging observations over large wavelength regions, we aim to unveil the physical properties and temporal evolution of the
ejected material in these types of objects in order to gain insight into their mass loss and mass ejection histories. This information is also vital to constrain the location of these objects along the evolutionary path of massive stars.