Can Wolf-Rayet stars be the missing ingredient to explain high-z He II ionizing radiation?
Abstract
Classical Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are hot, massive stars with depleted hydrogen. At low metallicities (Z), WN3-type WR stars have relatively thin winds and are major sources of ionizing flux. The detection of high-ionization emission lines in high-redshift () galaxies as well as nearby low-Z dwarf galaxies raises questions about the origin of He II ionizing radiation and its role in galaxy evolution, as stellar population models fail to reproduce the required fluxes. Low-Z WN3 stars may provide the missing contribution but are easily hidden in integrated light. Using the Local Volume Mapper, we compare resolved optical spectra of SMC WN3 stars with integrated regions, focusing on the broad He II line. We find stellar emission diluted within nebular regions, becoming undetectable when integrating over areas larger than 24 pc. Nonetheless, these stars emit enough ionizing photons to explain observed He II nebular emission, being strong candidates for the He II ionizing sources in low-Z and high- galaxies.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2511.16323,
title = {Can Wolf-Rayet stars be the missing ingredient to explain high-z He II ionizing radiation?},
author = {G. González-Torà and A. A. C. Sander and E. Egorova and O. Egorov and M. Bernini-Peron and J. Josiek and K. Kreckel and R. R. Lefever and V. Ramachandran and E. C. Schösser},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.16323},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
3 pages, 2 figures, to appear at the Proceedings of the IAUS402: Massive Stars Across Redshifts in the Era of JWST and Large-Scale Surveys