Related papers: A Radio Census of the Massive Stellar Cluster West…
Current mass-loss rate estimates imply that main sequence winds are not sufficient to strip away the H-rich envelope to yield Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars. The rich transitional population of Westerlund 1 (Wd 1) provides an ideal laboratory to…
The diverse massive stellar population in the young massive cluster Westerlund 1 (Wd~1) provides an ideal laboratory to observe and constrain mass-loss processes throughout the transitional phase of massive star evolution. A set of high…
High-dynamic range radio observations of Westerlund 1 are presented that detect a total of 21 stars in the young massive stellar cluster, the richest population of radio emitting stars known for any young massive galactic cluster in the…
Massive stars play an important role in both cluster and galactic evolution and the rate at which they lose mass is a key driver of both their own evolution and their interaction with the environment up to and including their SNe…
The formation, properties, and evolution of massive stars remain subject to considerable uncertainty; impacting on fields as diverse as galactic feedback and the nature of the progenitors of both electromagnetic and gravitational wave…
New NTT/SOFI imaging and spectroscopy of the Wolf-Rayet population in Westerlund 1 are presented. Narrow-band near-IR imaging together with follow up spectroscopy reveals four new WR stars, of which three were independently identified…
Despite the first detection of X-rays from massive stars occurring four decades ago, the physical dependence of the emission mechanism(s) on the underlying stellar and binary properties of the emitters remains uncertain. The young massive…
After leaving the main sequence, massive stars undergo complex evolution, still poorly understood. With a population of 100s OB stars, the starburst cluster Westerlund~1 offers an unparallelled environment to study their evolutionary…
Massive stars exhibit spectroscopic and photometric variability over a wide range of timescales. However the physical mechanisms driving this behaviour remain poorly understood. Westerlund 1 presents an ideal laboratory for studying these…
Mass-loss in massive stars plays a critical role in their evolution, although the precise mechanism(s) responsible - radiatively driven winds, impulsive ejection and/or binary interaction -remain uncertain. In this paper we present ALMA…
The Galactic open cluster Westerlund 1 (Wd 1) represents the ideal local template for extragalactic young massive star clusters, because it is currently the only nearby young cluster which reaches a mass of around 10^5 Msun. The proximity…
With a dynamical mass M_dyn ~ 1.3x10e5 M_sun and a lower limit M_cl>5x10e4 M_sun from star counts, Westerlund 1 is the most massive young open cluster known in the Galaxy and thus the perfect laboratory to study massive star evolution. We…
We present a structural analysis of the young massive star cluster Westerlund 1 (Wd 1). With multi-epoch Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations, we measure the proper motions of $10346$ stars and determine their kinematic memberships by…
Massive stellar clusters are the best available laboratories to study the mass function of stars. Based on NTT/SofI near-infrared photometry, we have investigated the properties of the massive young cluster Westerlund 1. From comparison…
An unsettled question concerning the formation and distribution of massive stars is whether they must be born in massive clusters and, if found in less dense environments, whether they must have migrated there. With the advent of wide-area…
Recent optical and IR studies have revealed that the heavily-reddened starburst cluster Westerlund 1 (Wd 1) contains at least 22 Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars, comprising the richest WR population of any galactic cluster. We present results of a…
Mass loss governs the evolution of massive stars and shapes the stellar surroundings. To quantify the impact of the stellar winds we need to know the exact mass-loss rates; however, empirical constraints on the rates are hampered by limited…
Massive, early type stars have been detected as radio sources for many decades. Their thermal winds radiate free-free continuum and in binary systems hosting a colliding-wind region, non-thermal emission has also been detected. To date, the…
In this work we study the circumstellar material (CSM) around massive stars, and the mass-loss rates depositing this CSM, using a large sample of radio observations of 325 core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe; only $\sim 22 \%$ of them being…
Most stars will experience episodes of substantial mass loss at some point in their lives. For very massive stars, mass loss dominates their evolution, although the mass loss rates are not known exactly, particularly once the star has left…