English

Using polarization to study the winds of massive stars

Astrophysics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

The topic of wind-clumping has been the subject of much activity in recent years, due to the impact that it can have on derived mass-loss rates. Here we present an alternative method of investigating wind-clumping, that of polarimetry. We present simulations of the polarization produced by a clumpy wind, and argue that the observations may be reproduced just by statistical deviations from spherical symmetry when the outflow is only slightly fragmented. Here, the polarization scales with M˙\dot{M}, which is consistent with observations of LBVs, WRs and O supergiants. Finally, we find clumping factors in the inner 2RR_{\star} of 23\sim 2-3, and speculate as to the clumping stratification of hot stars.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0609368,
  title  = {Using polarization to study the winds of massive stars},
  author = {Ben Davies and Jorick S. Vink and Rene D. Oudmaijer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0609368},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

8 pages, 6 figs, to appear in proceedings of 'Mass loss from stars and the evolution of stellar clusters'