Evolutionary properties of red supergiants with MESA

We investigate the evolutionary properties of red supergiant stars (RSGs), using stellar evolution model of Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA). In this study, we calculate models with mass range of 9-39M_sun and several different convection parameters (e.g. mixing length, overshooting, and semiconvection) at SMC, LMC, Milky Way, and M31 metallicities. We compare the calculated evolutionary tracks with observed RSGs in SMC, LMC, Milky Way and M31, and discuss appropriate input physical parameters in model calculation. We find that a larger mixing length parameter is necessary for M31 metallicity to fit the positions of RSGs in H-R diagram, compared to lower metallicity environments. Theoretically predicted numbers of yellow supergiant stars (YSGs) are also compared with the observed population. We find that Ledoux models with semiconvection can better explain the number of YSGs. Finally, we investigate the final radius, final star mass, and final hydrogen envelope mass of RSGs and discussed the their properties as type II-P supernova progenitors.