During October 2019 and March 2020, the luminous red supergiant Betelgeuse demonstrated an unusually deep minimum of its brightness. It became fainter by more than one magnitude and this is the most significant dimming observed in the recent decades.
While the reason for the dimming is debated, pre-phase of supernova explosion, obscuring dust, or changes in the photosphere of the star were suggested scenarios. Here, we present spectroscopic studies of Betelgeuse using high-resolution and high signal-to- noise ratio near-infrared spectra obtained at Weihai Observatory on four epochs in 2020 covering the phases of during and after dimming. We show that the dimming episode is caused by the dropping of its effective temperature by at least 170 K on 2020 January 31, that can be attributed to the emergence of a large dark spot on the surface of the star.
We present a model atom for C I - C II - C III - C IV using the most up-to-date atomic data and evaluated the non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) line formation in classical 1D atmospheric models of O-B-type stars. Our models predict the emiss
ion lines of C II 9903~AA and 18535~AA to appear at effective temperature Teff~$geq$~17,500~K, those of C II 6151~AA and 6461~AA to appear at Teff~$>$~25,000~K, and those of C III 5695, 6728--44, 9701--17~AA to appear at Teff~$geq$~35,000~K (log~$g$=4.0). Emission occurs in the lines of minority species, where the photoionization-recombination mechanism provides a depopulation of the lower levels to a greater extent than the upper levels. For C II 9903 and 18535~AA, the upper levels are mainly populated from C III reservoir through the Rydberg states. For C III 5695 and 6728--44~AA, the lower levels are depopulated due to photon losses in UV transitions at 885, 1308, and 1426--28~AA which become optically thin in the photosphere. We analysed the lines of C I, C II, C III, and C IV for twenty-two O-B-type stars with temperature range between 15,800 $leq$~Teff~$leq$ 38,000~K. Abundances from emission lines of C I, C II and C III are in agreement with those from absorption ones for most of the stars. We obtained log~$epsilon_{rm C}$=8.36$pm$0.08 from twenty B-type stars, that is in line with the present-day Cosmic Abundance Standard. The obtained carbon abundances in 15~Mon and HD~42088 from emission and absorption lines are 8.27$pm$0.11 and 8.31$pm$0.11, respectively.
