Related papers: Wolf-Rayet stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud as …
With their emission-line dominated spectra, the appearance of Wolf-Rayet stars is shaped by their strong stellar winds. Yet, the physical mechanisms behind their high mass loss have long remained enigmatic. While we know nowadays that…
Observed properties of Wolf-Rayet stars at high metallicity are reviewed. Wolf-Rayet stars are more common at higher metallicity, as a result of stronger mass-loss during earlier evolutionary phases with late WC subtypes signatures of solar…
The fast, dense winds which characterize Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars obscure their underlying cores, and complicate the verification of evolving core and nucleosynthesis models. Core evolution can be probed by measuring abundances of wind-borne…
An analysis of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) WC4 star BAT99-9 (HD 32125, FD 4, Brey 7, WS 3) shows that the star still contains photospheric nitrogen. Three N emission features (N V $\lambda\lambda 1238,1242$, N IV $\lambda 1719$, N IV…
Observed properties of GRBs, WR stars and their CO-cores in the end of evolution are analyzed. A possible bimodality of the observed GRB energy distribution ($10^{48}$ erg for GRB9809425; $3\times 10^{51}\div 2\times 10^{54}$ erg for…
We report the detection of WC stars in 5 Wolf-Rayet (WR) galaxies: He 2-10, NGC 3049, NGC 3125, NGC 5253 and Tol 89. The faint broad CIV5808 line requires sufficiently high S/N to be detected explaining the non-detection of this WC feature…
Some of the Wolf-Rayet stars are found to have very high bolometric luminosities (more than 1000000 solar). We employ the Potsdam Wolf-Rayet (PoWR) model atmospheres for their spectral analysis, which yields the bolometric corrections.…
The evolutionary origin of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars at Solar metallicity is unclear. Single-star evolution from massive O stars, possibly via a Luminous Blue Variable phase, is challenged by binary period distributions of different WR…
Despite the many successes that modern massive star evolutionary theory has enjoyed, reproducing the apparent trend in the relative number of red supergiants (RSGs) and Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars has remained elusive. Previous estimates show the…
Context. Metal-poor massive stars are supposed to be progenitors of certain supernovae, gamma-ray bursts and compact object mergers, potentially contributing to the early epochs of the Universe with their strong ionizing radiation. However,…
CONTEXT: The mass loss of He-burning stars, which are partially or completely stripped of their outer hydrogen envelope, is a catalyst of the cosmic matter cycle and decisive ingredient of massive star evolution. Yet, its theoretical…
Context. Oxygen sequence Wolf-Rayet (WO) stars are thought to represent the final evolutionary stage of the most massive stars. The characteristic strong O vi emission possibly originates from an enhanced oxygen abundance in the stellar…
We measure transverse proper motion velocities of LMC Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars using Gaia DR3 astrometry. The combined velocity distribution of WNh, O If*/WN, and WNL very massive stars ($>100\ M_\odot$; VMS) shows both slow, unejected objects…
We study the evolutionary and physical properties of evolved O stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), with a special focus on their surface abundances to investigate the efficiency of rotational mixing as a function of age, rotation and…
Classical Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are at a crucial evolutionary stage for constraining the fates of massive stars. The feedback of these hot, hydrogen-depleted stars dominates their surrounding by tremendous injections of ionizing radiation…
Standard binary evolutionary models predict a significant population of core helium-burning stars that lost their hydrogen-rich envelope after mass transfer via Roche-lobe overflow. However, there is a scarcity of observations of such…
Considering the physics of radiation-driven winds of massive stars, the wind properties should depend on the metal content of the stellar atmosphere. Therefore, studying the winds of massive stars in different metallicities provides a…
Most massive stars reside in multiple systems that will interact over the course of their lifetime. Classical Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars represent the final end stages of stellar evolution at the upper-mass end. As part of a homogeneous,…
The characterisation of the multiplicity of high-mass stars is of fundamental importance to understand their evolution, the diversity of observed core-collapse supernovae and the formation of gravitational wave progenitor systems. Despite…
We report the discovery of a relatively faint (V=15.5) early-type WN star in the SMC. The line strength and width of He II lambda 4686 emission is similar to that of the other SMC WNs, and the presense of N V lambda 4603,19 emission…