Luminous blue variable

The Pistol Star

Luminous blue variables (LBVs) are massive evolved stars that show unpredictable and sometimes dramatic variations in both their spectra and their brightness. They are also known as S Doradus variables after S Doradus, one of the brightest stars of the Large Magellanic Cloud. They are extraordinarily rare with just 20 objects listed in the General Catalogue of Variable Stars as SDor, and a number of these are no longer considered to be LBVs.

Discovery and history

The LBV stars P Cygni and Eta Carinae have been known as unusual variables since the 17th century, but their true nature was not fully understood until much more recently. The term "S Doradus variable" was used to describe them as a group in 1974.

In 1922, J. C. Duncan published the first three variable stars ever detected in an external galaxy, variables 1, 2 , and 3, in M33. These were followed up by Edwin Hubble with three more in 1926: A, B, and C in M33. Then in 1929 Hubble added a list of variables detected in M31. Of these, Var A, Var B, Var C, and Var 2 in M33 and Var 19 in M31 were followed up with a detailed study by Hubble and Allan Sandage in 1953. Var 1 in M33 was excluded as being too faint and Var 3 had already been classified as a Cepheid variable. At the time they were simply described as irregular variables, although remarkable for being the most luminous stars in those galaxies. The original Hubble Sandage paper contains a footnote that S Doradus might be the same type of star, but expressed strong reservations, so the link would have to wait several decades to be confirmed.

Later papers referred to these five stars as Hubble-Sandage variables. In the 1970's, Var 83 in M33 and AE And, AF And (=Var 19), Var 15, and Var A-1 in M31 were added to the list and described by several authors as "luminous blue variables", although it was not considered a formal name at the time. The spectra were found to contain lines with P Cygni profiles and were compared to Eta Carinae. In 1978, Roberta Humphreys published a study of eight variables in M31 and M33 (excluding Var A) and referred to them as luminous blue variables, as well as making the link to the S Doradus class of variable stars. In 1984 in a presentation at the IAU symposium, Peter Conti formally grouped the S Doradus variables, Hubble-Sandage variables, Eta Carinae, P Cygni, and other similar stars together under the term "luminous blue variables" and shortened it to LBV. He also clearly separated them from those other luminous blue stars, the Wolf-Rayets.

Physical properties

LBVs are unstable supergiant (or hypergiant) stars. In their "quiescent" state they are B-type stars with unusual emission lines, lying in a zone of the HR diagram where the least luminous have a temperature around 10,000 K and a luminosity about 250,000 times the Sun, while the most luminous have a temperature around 25,000K and a luminosity over a million times the Sun, making them some of the most luminous of all stars. During a normal "outburst" phase the temperature decreases to around 8,500K for all stars, while the bolometric luminosity remains constant (meaning visual luminosity increases somewhat). At irregular intervals, LBVs experience giant eruptions with dramatically increased mass loss and luminosity, so violent that several were initially catalogued as supernovae. The outbursts mean there are usually nebulae around such stars; Eta Carinae is the best-studied and most luminous known example, but may not be typical.

Evolution

Because of their large mass and high luminosity, their lifetime is very short—only a few million years in total and much less than a million years in the LBV phase. They are rapidly evolving on timescales that we can observe; examples have been detected where stars with Wolf–Rayet spectra (WNL/Ofpe) have developed to show LBV outbursts and a handful of supernovae have been traced to likely LBV progenitors.

There appear to be two groups of LBVs, one with luminosities above 630,000 times the Sun and the other with luminosities below 400,000 times the Sun. Models have been constructed. showing that the lower-luminosity group are post-red supergiant stars with masses of 30–60 times the Sun, while the higher-luminosity group are population II stars with masses 60–90 times the Sun which never develop to red supergiants although they may become yellow hypergiants. Some models hold that LBVs are a stage in the evolution of very massive stars required for them to shed excess mass while others require that most of the mass is lost at an earlier cool supergiant stage. Normal outbursts and the stellar winds in the quiescent state are not sufficient for the required mass loss, but LBVs occasionally produce abnormally large outbursts that can be mistaken for a faint supernova and these may shed the necessary mass. Recent models all agree that the LBV stage occurs after a hydrogen-rich Wolf–Rayet stage and before a hydrogen-poor Wolf–Rayet stage, and that almost all will eventually end as a supernova. They apparently can explode directly as a supernova although that isn't easily predicted by theory. If the star does not lose enough mass before the end of the LBV stage, it may undergo a particularly powerful supernova created by pair-instability.

Supernovae and imposters

Luminous blue variable stars can undergo "giant outbursts" with dramatically increased mass loss and luminosity. Eta Carinae is the prototypical example, with P Cygni showing one or more similar outbursts 300–400 years ago, but dozens have now been catalogued in external galaxies. Many of these were initially classified as supernovae but since re-examined because of unusual features. The nature of the outbursts and of the progenitor stars seems to be highly variable, with the outbursts most likely having several different causes. The historical Eta Carinae and P Cygni outbursts, and several seen more recently in external galaxies, have lasted years or decades while some of the supernova imposter events have declined to normal brightness within months. Well-studied examples are:

• SN 1954J
• SN 1961V
• SN 1997bs
• SN 2008S

Early models of stellar evolution had predicted that while the high-mass stars that produce LBVs would often or always end their lives as supernovae, the supernova explosion would not occur at the LBV stage. Prompted by the progenitor of SN 1987A being a blue supergiant, and most likely an LBV, several subsequent supernovae have been associated with LBV progenitors. The progenitor of SN 2005gl has been shown to be an LBV apparently in outburst only a few years earlier, while SN 2009ip was first shown to be a giant outburst of an LBV star, followed by two more in quick succession, and finally a true supernova.

List of LBVs

See also: List of most luminous stars

The identification of LBVs requires confirmation of the characteristic spectral and photometric variations, but these stars can be "quiescent" for decades or centuries at which time they are indistinguishable from many other hot luminous stars. A candidate luminous blue variable (cLBV) can be identified relatively quickly on the basis of its spectrum or luminosity, and dozens have been catalogued in our galaxy during recent surveys.

Recent studies of dense clusters and mass spectrographic analysis of luminous stars have identified dozens of probable LBVs in our own galaxy out of a likely total population of just a few hundred, although few have been observed in enough detail to confirm the characteristic types of variability. In addition the majority of the LBVs in the Magellanic Clouds have been identified, several dozen in M31 and M33, plus a handful in other local group galaxies.

Our galaxy:

• Eta Carinae
• P Cygni
• V4650 Sagittarii (FMM 362 or qF362, in the Quintuplet cluster)
• G0.120 0.048 (very close to Quintuplet cluster)
• AG Carinae
• HR Carinae
• Wray 15-571
• V4029 Sagittarii
• V905 Scorpii
• V1672 Aquilae (= AFGL 2298)
• W1-243 (in Westerlund 1)
• V481 Scuti
• GCIRS 34W

LMC:

• S Doradus
• HD 269858 (= R127)
• HD 269006 (= R71)
• HD 269445 (= R99)
• HD 269929 (= R143)
• HD 269662 (= R110)
• HD 269700 (= R116)
• HD 269582 (= MWC 112)
• S88

SMC:

• HD 5980 (= R14)
• HD 6884 (= R40)

M31:

• AF Andromedae
• AE Andromedae
• Var 15
• Var A-1
• LGGS J004341.84 +411112.0

M33:

• Var 2 (an extremely hot star showing no variability since 1935 and hardly studied)
• Var 83
• Var B
• Var C
• GR 290 (Romano's star, a hot and extremely luminous LBV)
• N 93351
• N 125093

M81:

• I1
• I2
• I3

M101:

• V1
• V2
• V10

NGC 2403:

• V12
• V22
• V35
• V37
• V38

NGC 1058:

• SN 1961V

A number of cLBVs in our galaxy are well known because of their extreme luminosity or unusual characteristics, including:

• Wray 17-96 (unusual hypergiant in the gap between the two semi-stable LBV regions)
• Pistol Star (once thought to be the most luminous star in the galaxy)
• LBV 1806-20 (one of the most luminous stars known)
• Sanduleak -69° 202 (the star that exploded as SN 1987A)
• Cygnus OB2-12 (blue hypergiant)
• HD 80077 (blue hypergiant)
• V1429 Aquilae (with a supergiant companion, very similar to a less luminous Eta Car)
• V4030 Sgr (hypergiant surrounded by a nebula identical to the one around Sanduleak -69° 202)
• WR 102ka (the Peony star, one of the most luminous stars known, and would be one of the hottest LBVs)

Other well-known stars not currently classified as LBVs but may be transitioning into LBVs, have been LBVs relatively recently, or are LBVs in a stable phase include:

• Zeta-1 Scorpii (naked-eye hypergiant)
• IRC+10420 (yellow hypergiant that has increased its temperature into the LBV range)
• V509 Cas (= HR 8752, an unusual yellow hypergiant evolving bluewards)
• Rho Cassiopeiae (unstable yellow hypergiant suffering periodic outbursts)

See also

• Hypernova

External links

• GCVS: List of SDOR variable stars