Exploring the Stellar Rotation of Early-type Stars in the LAMOST Medium-resolution Survey. III. Evolution

Abstract: Stellar rotation significantly shapes the evolution of massive stars, yet the interplay of mass and metallicity remains elusive, limiting our capacity to construct accurate stellar evolution models and to better estimate the impact of rotation in chemical evolution of galaxies. Our goal is to investigate how mass and metallicity influence the rotational evolution of A-type stars on the main sequence (MS). We seek to identify deviations in rotational behaviors that could serve as new constraints to existing stellar models. Using the LAMOST median-resolution survey Data Release 9, we derived stellar parameters for a population of 104,752 A-type stars. Our study focused on the evolution of surface rotational velocities and their dependence on mass and metallicity in 84,683 normal' stars. Normalized surface rotational revealed a prevailing evolutionary profile from 1.7 to 4.0 $M_\odot$. This profile features an initial rapid acceleration until $t/t_\mathrm{ms} = 0.25$, potentially a second acceleration peak near $t/t_\mathrm{ms} = 0.55$ for stars heavier than 2.5 $M_\odot$, followed by a steady decline and ahook' feature at the end. Surpassing theoretical expectations, the initial acceleration likely stems from a concentrated distribution of angular momentum at ZAMS, resulting in a prolonged increase in speed. The inverse circulation becomes more efficient at lower metallicity, explaining the correlation of the slope of this deceleration phase with metallicity from -0.3 dex up to 0.1 dex. The metal-poor subsample suggests a mechanism dependent on metallicity for removing angular momentum during star formation. The proportion of fast rotators decreases with an increase in metallicity, up to $\log(Z/Z_\odot)\sim -0.2$, a trend consistent with observations of OB-type stars found in the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds.