Modeling the wind and photosphere of massive stars with the radiative transfer code CMFGEN

Massive stars are extremely luminous and characterized by mass loss through radiation-driven stellar winds. The radiation emitted at the stellar surface may interact with the wind, making the analysis of the emerging spectrum a very challenging task. In addition to the luminosity, effective temperature, and surface gravity, several other stellar parameters impact the spectral morphology of these objects, remarkably the mass-loss rate and the wind terminal velocity. That is generally the case for OB supergiants, Luminous Blue Variables, and WR stars. CMFGEN [1] comprises the state-of-the-art in non-LTE radiative transfer and has been successfully applied to the above classes of objects over the last decade. The code assumes spherical symmetry, stationary outflow, and both photospheric and wind lines can be treated in non-LTE. Full line blanketing due to hundreds of thousands of spectral lines is included, as well as wind clumping. Here I discuss the assumptions behind CMFGEN and present examples of models and spectroscopic analyses.