Metallicity-dependent mixing length in evolution models of red supergiant stars in IC 1613

There is increasing evidence that the convective mixing length (α) in stellar evolution models depends on metallicity of stars. In order to confirm a more precise metallicity-dependent mixing length trend, we investigate the effective temperature and metallicity of 14 red supergiant stars (RSGs) in the irregular dwarf galaxy IC 1613 using the near-infrared spectra observed with the MMIRS on the MMT telescope. From the synthetic spectral fitting to the observed spectra, we find that the mean metallicity is about [Fe/H]=0.69 with a weak bimodal distribution. We also find that the effective temperature of RSGs in IC 1613 is higher by about 250 K than that of the SMC on average. We compare the RSG position with stellar evolutionary tracks on the HR diagram, finding that models with α = 2.2-2.4 H_p can best reproduce the effective temperatures of the RSGs in IC 1613. It is evident that the mixing length values for IC 1613 is lower than that of the Milky Way. This result supports our previous study on a metallicity-dependent mixing length: mixing length decreases with decreasing metallicity of host galaxies. However, this dependency becomes relatively weak for RSGs having a metallicity equal to or less than the SMC metallicity.