Luminous cool supergiants in Magellanic Clouds

There is no evidence for L_max_ being higher in the SMC than in the LMC, as would be expected if metallicity-dependent winds were the dominant factor in the stripping of stellar envelopes. We also show that L_max_ aligns with the lowest luminosity of single nitrogen-rich Wolf-Rayet stars, indicating of a change in evolutionary sequence for stars above a critical mass. From population synthesis analysis we show that the Geneva evolutionary models greatly over-predict the numbers of cool SGs in the SMC.

We also argue that the trend of earlier average spectral types of cool SGs in lower metallicity environments represents a genuine shift to hotter temperatures. Finally, we use our new bolometric luminosity measurements to provide updated bolometric corrections for cool supergiants.