Related papers: IR nebulae around bright massive stars as indicato…
This paper reviews our knowledge on binary central stars of planetary nebulae and presents some personal opinions regarding their evolution. Three types of interactions are distinguished: type I, where the binary companion induces the mass…
Stellar bow shocks result from relative motions between stars and their environment. The interaction of the stellar wind and radiation with gas and dust in the interstellar medium produces curved arcs of emission at optical, infrared, and…
A significant fraction of OB-type, main-sequence massive stars are classified as runaway and move supersonically through the interstellar medium (ISM). Their strong stellar winds interact with their surroundings where the typical strength…
We identify 709 arc-shaped mid-infrared nebula in 24 micron Spitzer Space Telescope or 22 micron Wide Field Infrared Explorer surveys of the Galactic Plane as probable dusty interstellar bowshocks powered by early-type stars. About 20% are…
Massive stars drive strong winds that impact the surrounding interstellar medium, producing parsec-scale bubbles for isolated stars and superbubbles around young clusters. These bubbles can be observed across the electromagnetic spectrum,…
Stellar bowshock nebulae are arcuate shock fronts formed by the interaction of radiation-driven stellar winds and the relative motion of the ambient interstellar material. Stellar bowshock nebulae provide a promising means to measure…
Because the majority of massive stars are born as members of close binary systems, populations of massive main-sequence stars contain stellar mergers and products of binary mass transfer. We simulate populations of massive stars accounting…
In an attempt to determine how many planetary nebulae derive from binary interactions, we have started a project to measure their unbiased binary fraction. This number, when compared to the binary fraction of the presumed parent population…
At least 5 per cent of the massive stars are moving supersonically through the interstellar medium (ISM) and are expected to produce a stellar wind bow shock. We explore how the mass loss and space velocity of massive runaway stars affect…
We present IFU observations of six emission-line nebulae that surround the central galaxy of cool core clusters. Qualitatively similar nebulae are observed in cool core clusters even when the dynamics and possibly formation and excitation…
Planetary Nebulae represent a powerful window into the evolution of low-intermediate mass stars that have undergone extensive mass-loss. The nebula manifests itself in an extremely wide variety of shapes, but exactly how the mass lost is…
The discrepancy between abundances computed using optical recombination lines (ORLs) and collisionally excited lines (CELs) is a major unresolved problem in nebular astrophysics. We show here that the largest abundance discrepancies are…
Post-AGB stars are key objects for the study of the dramatic morphological changes of low- to intermediate-mass stars on their evolution from the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) towards the Planetary Nebula stage. There is growing evidences…
Bow-shaped mid-infrared emission regions have been discovered in satellite observations of numerous late-type O and early-type B stars with moderate velocities relative to the ambient interstellar medium. Previously, hydrodynamical bow…
A current issue in the study of planetary nebulae with close binary central stars is the extent to which the binaries affect the shaping of the nebulae. Recent studies have begun to show a high coincidence rate between nebulae with…
The presence of a nearby companion alters the evolution of massive stars in binary systems, leading to phenomena such as stellar mergers, X-ray binaries and gamma-ray bursts. Unambiguous constraints on the fraction of massive stars affected…
The kinematic structure of a sample of planetary nebulae, consisting of 23 [WR] central stars, 21 weak emission line stars (wels) and 57 non-emission line central stars, is studied. The [WR] stars are shown to be surrounded by turbulent…
About 20% of all B-type stars are classical Be stars. The Be phenomenon is strongly correlated with rapid rotation, the origin of which remains unclear. It may be rooted in single- or binary-star evolution. In the framework of the binary…
Massive stars evolve across the HR diagram, losing mass along the way and forming a variety of ring nebulae. During the main sequence stage, the fast stellar wind sweeps up the ambient interstellar medium to form an interstellar bubble.…
Close binary central stars of planetary nebulae are key in constraining the poorly-understood common-envelope phase of evolution, which in turn is critical in understanding the formation of a wide-range of astrophysical phenomena (including…