Related papers: Direct spectroscopic observations of clumping in O…
The spectra of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars exhibit strong, broad emission lines that originate in the wind. These winds are radiatively driven and are susceptible to hydrodynamic instabilities that result in the formation of clumps. When…
Observational evidence exists that winds of massive stars are clumped. Many massive star systems are known as non-thermal particle production sites, as indicated by their synchrotron emission in the radio band. As a consequence they are…
Mass-loss rates currently in use for hot, massive stars have recently been seriously questioned, mainly because of the effects of wind clumping. We investigate the impact of clumping on diagnostic ultraviolet resonance and optical…
Hot massive stars exhibit strong stellar winds that enrich the surrounding interstellar medium and affect the stars' evolution. However, the winds are inhomogeneous (clumped) and are difficult to model in radiative transfer codes. To…
We review recent developments regarding radiation driven mass loss from OB-stars. We first summarize the fundamental theoretical predictions, and then compare these to observational results (including the VLT-FLAMES survey of massive…
Small-scale clumping in the winds of hot, massive stars is conventionally included in spectral analyses by assuming optically thin clumps, a void inter-clump medium, and a smooth velocity field. To reconcile investigations of different…
Observations with powerful X-ray telescopes, such as XMM-Newton and Chandra, significantly advance our understanding of massive stars. Nearly all early-type stars are X-ray sources. Studies of their X-ray emission provide important…
Clumping in the winds of massive stars may significantly reduce empirical mass-loss rates, and which in turn may have a large impact on our understanding of massive star evolution. Here, we investigate wind-clumping through the linear…
We present an analysis of Chandra grating spectra of key helium-like line complexes to put constraints on the location with respect to the photosphere of the hottest ($T \gtrsim{6 \times 10^6}$ K) plasma in the wind of the O supergiant zeta…
We investigate the effects of stellar limb-darkening and photospheric perturbations for the onset of wind structure arising from the strong, intrinsic line-deshadowing instability (LDI) of a line-driven stellar wind. A linear perturbation…
Context. Mass-loss, occurring through radiation driven supersonic winds, is a key issue throughout the evolution of massive stars. Two outstanding problems are currently challenging the theory of radiation-driven winds: wind clumping and…
We present the results of a long-term monitoring campaign of the H\alpha line in a sample of bright OB-supergiants (O7.5-B9) that aims at detecting rotationally modulated changes potentially related to the existence of large-scale wind…
We study the stellar and wind properties of a sample of Galactic O dwarfs to track the conditions under which weak winds (i.e mass loss rates lower than ~ 1e-8 Msol/yr) appear. The sample is composed of low and high luminosity dwarfs…
The properties, impact, and fate of hot stars cannot be understood without considering their winds. Revealed to be an almost ubiquitous phenomenon in the regime of massive stars, the winds of hot stars arise from a complex physical…
Mass loss through a stellar wind is an important physical process that steers the evolution of massive stars and controls the properties of their end-of-life products, such as the supernova type and the mass of compact remnants. For an…
The most massive stars are thought to lose a significant fraction of their mass in a steady wind during the main-sequence and blue supergiant phases. This in turn sets the stage for their further evolution and eventual supernova, with…
Nearly all types of massive stars with radiatively driven stellar winds are X-ray sources that can be observed by the presently operating powerful X-ray telescopes. In this review I briefly address recent advances in our understanding of…
Context: The star cluster R136 inside the LMC hosts a rich population of massive stars, including the most massive stars known. The strong stellar winds of these very luminous stars impact their evolution and the surrounding environment. We…
X-ray emission is ubiquitous among massive stars. In the last decade, X-ray observations revolutionized our perception of stellar winds but opened a Pandora's box of urgent problems. X-rays penetrating stellar winds suffer mainly continuum…
[Abridged] Clumping in the radiation-driven winds of hot, massive stars affects the derivation of synthetic observables across the electromagnetic spectrum. We implement a formalism for treating wind clumping - in particular the…