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Galactic, young massive star clusters are approximately coeval aggregates of stars, close enough to resolve the individual stars, massive enough to have produced large numbers of massive stars, and young enough for these stars to be in a pre-supernova state. As such these objects represent powerful natural laboratories in which to study the evolution of massive stars. To be used in this way, it is crucial that accurate and precise distances are known, since this affects both the inferred luminosities of the cluster members and the age estimate for the cluster itself. Here we present distance estimates for three star clusters rich in Red Supergiants ($chi$ Per, NGC 7419 and Westerlund 1) based on their average astrometric parallaxes $bar{pi}$ in Gaia Data Release 2, where the measurement of $bar{pi}$ is obtained from a proper-motion screened sample of spectroscopically-confirmed cluster members. We determine distances of $d=2.25^{+0.16}_{-0.14}$kpc, $d=3.00^{+0.35}_{-0.29}$kpc, and $d=3.87^{+0.95}_{-0.64}$kpc for the three clusters respectively. We find that the dominant source of error is that in Gaias zero-point parallax offset $pi_{rm ZP}$, and we argue that more precise distances cannot be determined without an improved characterization of this quantity.
We report new 5.5 GHz radio observations of the massive star cluster Westerlund 1, taken by the Australia Telescope Compact Array, detecting nine of the ten yellow hypergiants (YHGs) and red supergiants (RSGs) within the cluster. Eight of nine source
The mass loss rates of red supergiants (RSGs) govern their evolution towards supernova and dictate the appearance of the resulting explosion. To study how mass-loss rates change with evolution we measure the mass-loss rates (mdot) and extinctions of
The Perseus OB1 association hosts one of the most populous groupings of blue and red supergiants (Sgs) in the Galaxy. We discuss whether the massive O-type and blue/red Sg stars located in the Per OB1 region are members of the same population and exa
We report the results of Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) observations of the Westerlund~1 (Wd1) region in the SiO v=1, J=1-0 and H2O 6(16)-5(23) maser lines, and we also report the analysis of maser properties of red supergiants (RSGs) assoc
We use the Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis (BPASS) models to test the recent suggestion that red supergiants can provide an accurate age estimate of a co-eval stellar population that is unaffected by interacting binary stars. Ages are estima