English

Variable dust formation by the colliding-wind Wolf-Rayet system HD 36402 in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2015-06-15 v1

Abstract

Infrared photometry of the probable triple WC4(+O?)+O8I: Wolf-Rayet system HD 36402 (= BAT99-38) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) shows emission characteristic of heated dust. The dust emission is variable on a time-scale of years, with a period near 4.7 yr, possibly associated with orbital motion of the O8 supergiant and the inner P ~ 3.03-d WC4+O binary. The phase of maximum dust emission is close to that of the X-ray minimum, consistent with both processes being tied to colliding wind effects in an elliptical binary orbit. It is evident that Wolf-Rayet dust formation occurs also in metal-poor environments.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1302.2002,
  title  = {Variable dust formation by the colliding-wind Wolf-Rayet system HD 36402 in the Large Magellanic Cloud},
  author = {P. M. Williams and Y. -H. Chu and R. A. Gruendl and M. A. Guerrero},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.2002},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

8 pages, 4 figures, to be published in MNRAS

R2 v1 2026-06-21T23:23:08.565Z