Issue |
A&A
Volume 381, Number 3, JanuaryIII 2002
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 951 - 958 | |
Section | Interstellar and circumstellar matter | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20011574 | |
Published online | 15 January 2002 |
STIS spectroscopy of newborn massive stars in SMC N81*
1
, Observatoire de Paris, 61 avenue de l'Observatoire, 75014 Paris, France
2
Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility, European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
3
Laboratoire d'Astrophysique, Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, 14 avenue É. Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France
4
Cornell University, Astronomy Department, 106 Space Sciences Bldg., Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
Corresponding author: M. Heydari-Malayeri, heydari@obspm.fr
Received:
14
August
2001
Accepted:
25
October
2001
Using Hubble Space Telescope observations with STIS, we study the main exciting stars of N81, a high excitation compact H ii region in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). These far UV observations are the first spectroscopic measurements of stars in such a region and reveal features characteristic of an O6–O8 stellar type. The astonishing weakness of their wind profiles and their sub-luminosity (up to ~2 mag fainter in MV than the corresponding dwarfs) make these stars a unique stellar population in the Magellanic Clouds. Our analysis suggests that they are probably in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram locus of a particularly young class of massive stars, the so-called Vz luminosity class, as they are arriving at the zero age main sequence.
Key words: stars: early-type / ISM: dust, extinction / ISM: H ii regions / ISM: individual objects: N81 / galaxies: magellanic clouds
© ESO, 2002
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