English

P V and the Mass Loss Discrepancy in O Stars

Astrophysics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

Building upon a previous analysis of P V wind lines in LMC O stars, we analyze the P V wind lines in a sample of Galactic O stars which have empirical mass loss rates determined from either their radio fluxes or H alpha profiles. Since the wind analysis provides a measure of \dot{M}q where q is the ionization fraction of the ion, we determine q(P V) observationally. In spite of model predictions that q should be about 1 for mid-O stars, we find q(P V) is less than 0.15 throughout the O stars. We discuss the origin of this discrepancy.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0410089,
  title  = {P V and the Mass Loss Discrepancy in O Stars},
  author = {D. Massa and A. W. Fullerton and R. K. Prinja},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0410089},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

3 pages, 1 figure; To appear in proceedings of conference "Astrophysics in the Far Ultraviolet: Five Years of Discovery with FUSE", ASP Conf. Series (ed. Sonneborn, Moos, & Andersson)