The critical role of HST UV spectroscopy in constraining red supergiant binary systems

Abstract

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has advanced our knowledge of stellar evolution thanks to its unique high-spectral resolution and high-sensitivity capabilities in the UV region, especially for hot massive stars. Within the field of red supergiants (RSGs), it has led to several major insights as well, such as, for example, characterizing the embedded hot companion in the VV Cephei system, the detection of surface mass ejection from Betelgeuse, and unveiling the rich population of RSG+B binaries in the Magellanic Clouds. We demonstrate that nowadays (and in the decade to come) we need HST more than ever, as for the first time, thanks to the significant advances of high-angular-resolution interferometric and astrometric techniques, we can resolve the orbital motion of stellar components in RSG systems. However, the long wavelengths are dominated by the cool RSGs. Thus, observing such companions in the UV with HST is the only way to constrain the properties and velocity of the hot companions, adding the required missing piece of information for constraining the orbital solution and evolutionary status of RSG systems. Such observations are critical for understanding the interaction and mass transfer in massive binary systems and their connection to the observed population of supernovae.