Abstract
We present high spectral resolution aperture-synthesis imaging of the red supergiant Antares (alpha Sco) in individual CO first overtone lines with VLTI/AMBER. The reconstructed images reveal that the star appears differently in the blue wing, line center, and red wing and shows an asymmetrically extended component. The appearance of the star within the CO lines changes drastically within one year, implying a significant change in the velocity field in the atmosphere. Our modeling suggests an outer atmosphere (MOLsphere) extending to 1.2--1.4 stellar radii with CO column densities of (0.5--1)x10^{20} cm^{-2} and a temperature of ~2000 K. While the velocity field in 2009 is characterized by strong upwelling motions at 20--30 km/s, it changed to strong downdrafts in 2010. On the other hand, the AMBER data in the continuum show only a slight deviation from limb-darkened disks and only marginal time variations. We derive a limb-darkened disk diameter of 37.38+/-0.06 mas and a power-law-type limb-darkening parameter of (8.7+/-1.6)x10^{-2} (2009) and 37.31+/-0.09 mas and (1.5+/-0.2)x10^{-1} (2010). We also obtain Teff = 3660+/-120 K and log L/Lsun = 4.88+/-0.23, which suggests a mass of 15+/-5 Msun with an age of 11-15 Myr. This age is consistent with the recently estimated age for the Upper Scorpius OB association. The properties of the outer atmosphere of Antares are similar to those of another well-studied red supergiant, Betelgeuse. The density of the extended outer atmosphere of Antares and Betelgeuse is higher than predicted by the current 3-D convection simulations by at least six orders of magnitude, implying that convection alone cannot explain the formation of the extended outer atmosphere.
Highlights
The mass loss in the red supergiant (RSG) stage significantly affects the final fate of massive stars
W√e adopted the simple mean of the errors without reducing by Ncont, where Ncont is the number of the continuum spectral channels, because the errors are dominated by systematic errors, and they do not become smaller by averaging
We have presented high spectral resolution aperture-synthesis imaging of Antares at two epochs with VLTI/AMBER
Summary
The mass loss in the red supergiant (RSG) stage significantly affects the final fate of massive stars. The mass loss in the RSG stage seems to be a key to understanding the progenitors of the most common core-collapse supernovae (SNe) Type IIp (e.g., Smartt et al 2009). Based on AMBER observations made with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer of the European Southern Observatory. Program ID: 083.D-0333(A/B) (AMBER guaranteed time observation), 085.D-0085(A/B)
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