Polarization provides additional diagnostic opportunities for probing the structured environments of massive stars as well as the illumination of those environments by stars that are not spherical. After a brief overview of polarization considerations relevant to hot massive stars, selected applications are presented. Examples related to dense Wolf-Rayet winds are chosen: clumpy wind flow, co-rotating interaction regions, and colliding wind interactions. Brief remarks are given about the prospects for opening a new window on massive star studies using UV spectropolarimetry with the {\em Polstar} mission concept.
@article{arxiv.2603.28585,
title = {Interpretative Modeling of Structured Winds Using Linear Polarization},
author = {R Ignace},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.28585},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
in Cranmer, S. R., Fullerton, A. W., Jones, C. E., Fundamentals of Stellar Outflows: Celebrating and Amplifying the Scientific Life of Stan Owocki (Leuven: Belgium), 144 (doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19225218)