Context. Masses are a fundamental parameter, but they are not well known for most hot subdwarfs. In general, the mass of a hot subdwarf is derived with asteroseismology or dynamical methods, for which it is often difficult to obtain the necessary data from observations. Aims. We intend to find an approach to deriving the masses of hot subdwarfs from observational data in the literature. Methods. We presented full evolutionary calculations for hot subdwarfs in a wide mass range (0.33to 1.4)for a Population I metallicity of Z = 0.02, and obtained a relation between and ,where ,,and g are the most probable mass, effective temperature, and gravity. This relation is used to study the masses of some observed hot subdwarfs. Results. We proposed a method of determining the masses of hot subdwarfs. Using this method, we studied the masses of hot subdwarfs from the ESO supernova Ia progenitor survey and Hamburg quasar survey. The study shows that most of subdwarf B stars have masses between 0.42 and 0.54,whilst most sdO stars are in the range .Comparing our study to the theoretical mass distributions of Han etal. (2003, MNRAS, 341, 669), we found that sdO stars with mass less than 0.5may evolve from sdB stars, whilst most high-mass(>0.5)sdO stars result from mergers directly. Key words: stars: fundamental parameters - stars: horizontal-branch - subdwarfs
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