Related papers: Eta Carinae with Fermi-LAT: Two full orbits and th…
Massive stars feature highly energetic stellar winds that interact whenever two such stars are bound in a binary system. The signatures of these interactions are nowadays found over a wide range of wavelengths, including the radio domain,…
Gamma-ray binaries are orbital modulated gamma-ray sources in the Galaxy detected both at GeV and TeV energies. The high-energy radiation may come from the interaction of energetic electrons injected by a young pulsar and photons from the…
Massive systems made of two or more stars are known to be the site for interesting physical processes -- including at least in some cases -- particle acceleration. Over the past decade, this topic motivated a particular effort to unveil the…
More than a dozen binary systems are now established as sources of variable, high energy (HE, 0.1-100 GeV) gamma rays. Five are also established sources of very high energy (VHE, >100 GeV) gamma rays. The mechanisms behind gamma-ray…
We describe and analyze Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of transient emission near 4680 {\AA} in Eta Car, reported earlier by Steiner & Damineli (2004). If, as seems probable, this is He II $\lambda$4687, then it is a unique clue…
Very massive stars shed much of their mass in violent precursor eruptions as luminous blue variables (LBVs) before reaching their most likely end as supernovae, but the cause of LBV eruptions is unknown. The 19th century eruption of Eta…
The periodic events occurring in Eta Carinae have been widely monitored during the last three 5.5-year cycles. The last one recently occurred in January 2009 and more exhaustive observations have been made at different wavelength ranges. If…
Eta Carinae is a massive interacting binary system shrouded in a complex circumstellar environment whose evolution is the source of the long-term brightening observed during the last 80 years. An occulter, acting as a natural coronagraph,…
Radio observations are an effective tool to discover particle acceleration regions in colliding-wind binaries, through detection of synchrotron radiation; these regions are natural laboratories for the study of relativistic particles.…
The young O9.5 V spectroscopic binary Theta 2 Ori A shows moderately hard X-ray emission and relatively narrow X-ray lines, suggesting that it may be a Magnetically Confined Wind Shock (MCWS) source, similar to its more massive analogue…
Colliding winds of massive star binary systems are considered as potential sites of non-thermal high-energy photon production. This is motivated merely by the detection of synchrotron radio emission from the expected colliding wind…
Wolf-Rayet stars embody the final stable phase of the most massive stars immediately before their evolution is terminated in a supernova explosion. They are responsible for some of the most extreme and energetic phenomena in stellar…
Major stellar-wind emission features in the spectrum of Eta Car have recently decreased by factors of order 2 relative to the continuum. This is unprecedented in the modern observational record. The simplest, but unproven, explanation is a…
Many early-type stars are in binary systems. A number of them shows radio emissivity with periodic variability. This variability is associated with non-thermal synchrotron radiation emitted by relativistic electrons. The strong shocks…
The recent discovery of a spectacular dust plume in the system 2XMM J160050.7-514245 (referred to as "Apep") suggested a physical origin in a colliding-wind binary by way of the "Pinwheel" mechanism. Observational data pointed to a…
The jets of microquasars with high-mass stellar companions are exposed to the dense matter field of the stellar wind. We present estimates of the gamma-ray emission expected from the jet-wind hadronic interaction and we discuss the…
The massive evolved star Eta Carinae is the most luminous star in the Milky Way and has the highest steady wind mass-loss rate of any known star. Radiative transfer models of the spectrum by Hillier et al. predict that H-alpha is mostly…
Eta Carinae underwent the Great Eruption in the 1840s and a Lesser Eruption in the 1890s. Its apparent spectrum, modified by intervening ejecta, the Homunculus and Little Homunculus, continues to evolve but contains information pertaining…
B[e] supergiants have unusual circumstellar environments which may include thin, concentric rings displaying atomic line emission. GG Carinae is a B[e] supergiant binary which exhibits such a geometry in its circumbinary environment. We…
High-mass binary systems involve extreme environments that produce non-thermal emission from radio to gamma rays. Only three types of these systems are known to emit persistent gamma-ray emission: colliding-wind binaries, high-mass X-ray…