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Among different types of massive stars in advanced evolutionary stages is the enigmatic WN8h type. There are only a few Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars with this spectral type in our Galaxy. It has long been suggested that WN8h-type stars are the…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-12-12 J. A. Toala , L. M. Oskinova , W. -R. Hamann , R. Ignace , A. A. C. Sander , T. Shenar , H. Todt , Y. -H. Chu , M. A. Guerrero , R. Hainich , J. M. Torrejon

The striking broad emission line spectroscopic appearance of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars has long defied analysis, due to the extreme physical conditions within their line and continuum forming regions. Recently, model atmosphere studies have…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-11-26 Paul A Crowther

The massive, luminous Population I Wolf-Rayet stars can be considered as stars with the highest known sustained mass loss rates. Around 10% of WR stars may form carbon-rich dust in their dense and inhomogeneous winds. Though we are yet to…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Sergey V. Marchenko , Anthony F. J. Moffat

Some carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet stars (WC stars) show an infrared excess from dust emission. Dust forms in the collision of the WC wind with a companion star's wind. As this dust is carried towards the ISM at close to the WCd wind speed and the…

We report the serendipitous discovery of a ring nebula around a candidate Wolf-Rayet (WR) star, HBHA 4202-22, in Cygnus using the Spitzer Space Telescope archival data. Our spectroscopic follow-up observations confirmed the WR nature of…

We study relatively isolated massive WN-type stars in the Galactic center. The K-band spectra of WR102ka and WR102c are exploited to infer the stellar parameters and to compute synthetic stellar spectra using the Potsdam Wolf-Rayet (PoWR)…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 A. Barniske , L. M. Oskinova , W. -R. Hamann

The Wolf-Rayet (WR) nebula NGC3199 has been suggested to be a bow shock around its central star WR18, presumably a runaway star, because optical images of the nebula show a dominating arc of emission south-west of the star. We present the…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2017-09-13 J. A. Toalá , A. P. Marston , M. A. Guerrero , Y. -H. Chu , R. A. Gruendl

We present results from the first attempts to derive various physical characteristics of the dusty Wolf-Rayet star WR 48a based on a multi-wavelength view of its observational properties. This is done on the basis of new optical and…

We present deep H$\alpha$ and [O III] images of the ejecta rich nebulosity associated with the suspected runaway and binary Wolf-Rayet star WR~71 (HD 143414). In H$\alpha$ emission, the nebula appears as a crescent shaped, broken ring of…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-07-25 Robert A. Fesen , Manuel C. Peitsch , Martin R. Pugh , Bray Falls , Marcel Drechsler

Wolf-Rayet stars (WR) have been detected in the NW region of the metal-poor starburst galaxy IZw 18. The integrated luminosity and FWHM of the bumps at 4650 A and 5808 A are consistent with the presence of a few individual stars of WC4 or…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 F. Legrand , D. Kunth , J. -R. Roy , J. M. Mas-Hesse , J. R. Walsh

Recent large scale Galactic Plane H$\alpha$ surveys allow a re-examination of the environs of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars for the presence of a circumstellar nebula. Using the morphologies of WR nebulae known to be composed of stellar ejecta as a…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-19 D. J. Stock , M. J. Barlow

Some hot, massive, population-I Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars of the carbon subclass are known to be prolific dust-producers. How dust can form in such a hostile environment remains a mystery. Here we report the discovery of a relatively cool,…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-07 S. V. Marchenko , A. F. J. Moffat , W. D. Vacca , S. Cote , R. Doyon

Massive colliding-wind binaries that host a Wolf-Rayet (WR) star present a potentially important source of dust and chemical enrichment in the interstellar medium (ISM). However, the chemical composition and survival of dust formed from…

We report the detection of a number of emission lines in the 1.0--2.4~$\mu$m spectra of four of the five bright infrared dust-embedded stars at the center of the Galactic center's Quintuplet Cluster. Spectroscopy of the central stars of…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2017-08-30 F. Najarro , T. R. Geballe , D. F. Figer , D. de la Fuente

We summarize new X-ray detections of four nitrogen-type Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars obtained in a limited survey aimed at establishing the X-ray properties of WN stars across their full range of spectral subtypes. None of the detected stars is so…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-14 S. L. Skinner , S. A. Zhekov , M. Guedel , W. Schmutz , K. R. Sokal

We present the detection of a broad 8 $\mu$m feature in newly formed dust around the carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet (WC) binary WR 125 from N-band low-resolution (NL; R$\sim$250) spectroscopy between 7.3-13.6 $\mu$m and N-band (11.7 $\mu$m) and…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2022-05-18 Izumi Endo , Ryan M. Lau , Itsuki Sakon , Takashi Onaka , Peredur M. Williams , Victor I. Shenavrin

Wolf-Rayet (WR) 140 is the archetypal periodic dust-forming colliding-wind binary that hosts a carbon-rich WR (WC) star and an O-star companion with an orbital period of 7.93 years and an orbital eccentricity of 0.9. Throughout the past…

A growing number of Galactic Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars, in particular WC and transitional WN/C (WNC) objects, have been reported at comparatively low luminosities. If confirmed, these low-luminosity WR stars provide stringent tests of…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2026-05-05 Siyu Wu , Zhi Li , Yan Li

We present high spatial resolution mid-infrared images of the nebula around the late-type carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet (WC)-OB binary system WR~112 taken by the recently upgraded VLT spectrometer and imager for the mid-infrared (VISIR) with the…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2017-02-08 R. M. Lau , M. J. Hankins , R. Schödel , J. Sanchez-Bermudez , A. F. J. Moffat , M. E. Ressler

We present new radio and optical observations of the colliding-wind system WR146 aimed at understanding the nature of the companion to the Wolf-Rayet star and the collision of their winds. The radio observations reveal emission from three…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-10-31 Sean M. Dougherty , P. M. Williams , D. L. Pollacco