Search

Context. Increasing the statistics of evolved massive stars in the Local Group enables investigating their evolution at different metallicities. During the late stages of stellar evolution, the physics of some phenomena, such as episodic and systematic mass loss, are not well constrained. For example, the physical properties of red supergiants (RSGs) in different metallicity regimes remain poorly understood. Thus, we initiated a systematic study of RSGs in dwarf irregular galaxies (dIrrs) in the Local Group. Aims. We aim to derive the fundamental physical parameters of RSGs and characterize the RSG population in nearby dIrrs. Methods. The target selection is based on 3.6 μm and 4.5 μm photometry from archival Spitzer Space Telescope images of nearby galaxies. We selected 46 targets in the dIrrs IC 10, IC 1613, Sextans B, and the Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte (WLM) galaxy that we observed with the GTC–OSIRIS and VLT–FORS2 instruments. We used several photometric techniques together with a spectral energy distribution analysis to derive the luminosities and effective temperatures of known and newly discovered RSGs. Results. We identified and spectroscopically confirmed 4 new RSGs, 5 previously known RSGs, and 5 massive asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. We added known objects from previous observations. In total, we present spectral classification and fundamental physical parameters of 25 late-type massive stars in the following dIrrs: Sextans A, Sextans B, IC 10, IC 1613, Pegasus, Phoenix, and WLM. This includes 17 RSGs and 8 AGB stars that have been identified here and previously. Conclusions. Based on our observational results and PARSEC evolutionary models, we draw the following conclusions: (i) a trend to higher minimum effective temperatures at lower metallicities and (ii) the maximum luminosity of RSGs appears to be constant at log(L/L⊙)≈5.5, independent of the metallicity of the host environment (up to [Fe/H] ≈ −1 dex). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context. Star formation activity is an important driver of galaxy evolution and is influenced by the physical properties of the interstellar medium. Dwarf galaxies allow us to understand how the propagation of radiation and the physical conditions of the different ISM phases are affected by the low-metallicity environment. Aims. Our objective is to investigate the physical properties of the ionized gas of the low-metallicity dwarf galaxy, IC 10, at various spatial scales: from individual H II regions to the entire galaxy scale and examine whether diagnostics for integrated measurements introduce bias in the results. Methods. We modeled the ionized gas combining the mid- and far-infrared fine-structure cooling lines observed with Spitzer/IRS and Herschel/PACS, with the photoionization code CLOUDY. The free parameters of the models are the age of the stellar cluster, the density, and the ionization parameter of the ionized gas as well as the depth of the cloud. The latter is used to investigate the leakage of the ionizing photons from the analyzed regions of IC 10. We investigated H II regions in the main star-forming body, on scales of ~25 pc, three in the main star-forming region in the center of the galaxy and two on the first arc. We then considered larger sizes on the scale of ~200 pc. Results. Most clumps have almost-identical properties, density ~102–102.6 cm−3, ionization parameter between 10−2.2 and 10−1.6, and age of the stellar cluster ~5.5 Myr. All of them are matter-bounded regions, allowing ionizing photons to leak. The relatively uniform physical properties of the clumps suggest a common origin for their star formation activity, which could be related to the feedback from stellar winds or supernovae of a previous generation of stars. The properties derived for ~200 pc size "zones" have similar properties as the H II regions they encompass, but with the larger regions tending to be more radiation bounded. Finally, we investigated the fraction of [CII] 157.7 μm, [SiII] 34.8 μm and [FeII] 25.9 μm emission arising from the ionized gas phase and we find that most of the emission originates from the neutral gas, not from the ionized gas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the results of medium-resolution spectroscopy of 28 globular clusters (GCs) in six nearby galaxies of different luminosities and morphological types, situated in M33 (15 objects), M31 (three), IC10 (four), UGCA86 (four), Holmberg IX (one) and DDO71 (one) obtained at the Special Astrophysical Observatory 6-m telescope. Measurements of Lick absorption line indices and comparison with Simple Stellar Population models enabled us to obtain their spectroscopic ages, metallicities and -element to Fe abundance ratios. We found that all old- and intermediate-age GCs in our sample have low metallicities dex. Metal-rich clusters are young and are preferentially found in galaxies more massive than . The least massive dwarfs of our sample, DDO71 and Holmberg IX, host one massive intermediate-age and one massive young metal-poor GC, respectively. [ /Fe] abundance ratios tend to be enhanced but closer to solar values for dwarf galaxies compared to GCs in more massive galaxies. We analyse the age–metallicity relation for GCs in our sample and others from the literature, and find that (1) there is a general trend for GCs in low surface brightness dwarf galaxies to be more metal-poor at a given age than GCs in more massive galaxies; (2) the GC metallicity spread is wider for more massive galaxies and (3) intermediate-age GCs in early-type dwarf galaxies are more metal-rich at any given age than those in irregular galaxies of similar luminosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]