Better determinations of mass loss rates for red giants and supergiants

Mass loss in the form of stellar winds is of great relevance to the study of stellar atmospheres, stellar structure and evolution, and the interstellar medium, and progress in these areas would greatly benefit from reliable estimates of mass loss rates M for many stars. In this paper the authors discuss the ''new'' methods which have become available in the last decade or so utilizing other wavelength regions. They limit this study to giants and supergiants of spectral type G to mid M, and thus we will not mention M measurements in late M stars using molecular emission lines such as CO(J=2-1). They also exclude techniques that are only appropriate for binary systems of known orbital parameters