Fundamental parameters of Galactic luminous OB stars VI. Temperatures, masses and WLR of Cyg OB2 supergiants

Abstract

We have analyzed six OB supergiants and one giant covering spectral types from O3 to B1 in the Galactic OB association Cyg OB2 by means of an updated version of FASTWIND (SAntolaya-Rey, Puls, Herrero, 1997, A&A 323, 348) that includes an approximate treatment of metal line blocking and blanketing. This large coverage in spectral type allows us to derive a new temperature scale for Galactic O supergiants that is lower than the one obtained by using pure H--He models, either plane-parallel and hydrostatic or spherical with mass-loss. The lower temperatures are thus a combined effect of line blanketing and the large mass-loss rates. In some cases, the newly derived effective temperature is reduced by up to 8000 K. Changes are larger for earlier stars with large mass--loss rates. As a consequence, luminosities are modified as well, which results in a lower number of emerging ionizing photons and reduces the mass discrepancy. Although there are still significant differences between spectroscopic and evolutionary masses, we do not find any obvious systematic pattern of those differences. We derive mass--loss rates and the corresponding wind momentum--luminosity relation for the analyzed stars. Although consistent with previous results by Puls et al. (1996, A&A 305, 171) for Galactic stars, our relation is better defined due to a reduction of errors related to stellar distances and points to a possible separation between extreme Of stars (Of+, Of*) and stars with more moderate morphologies. However this finding is only tentative, as the statistics are still scarce.