Related papers: New mass estimates for massive binary systems: a p…
High-resolution radio observations have revealed that non-thermal radio emission in WR stars arises where the stellar wind of the WR star collides with that of a binary companion. These colliding-wind binary (CWB) systems offer an important…
Wolf-Rayet stars (WRs) are evolved massive stars in the brief stage before they undergo core collapse. Not only are they rare, but they also can be particularly difficult to find due to the high extinction in the Galactic plane. This paper…
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: Recent gamma-ray observations of young star clusters revealed that stellar wind termination shocks accelerate particles, with the energy reservoir provided by the mechanical power of massive-star winds. Aims: Our goal is to…
Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars, as they are advanced stages of the life of massive stars, provide a good test for various physical processes involved in the modelling of massive stars, such as rotation and mass loss. In this paper, we show the…
The winds of massive stars are important for their direct impact on the interstellar medium, and for their influence on the final state of a star prior to it exploding as a supernova. However, the dynamics of these winds is understood…
We discuss differences between massive single star and massive close binary population number synthesis predictions of WR stars. We show that the WC/WN number ratio as function of metallicity depends significantly on whether or not binaries…
This paper discusses our ongoing efforts to characterize dust-enshrouded Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars in the radio and infrared. We have used the Very Large Array to measure the broadband radio spectrum of WR stars in suspected binary systems and…
CONTEXT: Very massive stars pass through the Wolf-Rayet (WR) stage before they finally explode. Details of their evolution have not yet been safely established, and their physics are not well understood. Their spectral analysis requires…
Massive binaries are vital sources of various transient processes, including gravitational-wave mergers. However, large uncertainties in the evolution of massive stars, both physical and numerical, present a major challenge to the…
We examine the properties of Wolf--Rayet (WR) stars predicted by models of rotating stars taking account of the new mass loss rates for O--type stars and WR stars (Vink et al. \cite{Vink00}, \cite{Vink01}; Nugis & Lamers \cite{NuLa00}) and…
Nearly all types of massive stars with radiatively driven stellar winds are X-ray sources that can be observed by the presently operating powerful X-ray telescopes. In this review I briefly address recent advances in our understanding of…
We present in this contribution our set of multiwavelength synthesis models including the evolution of single and binary stars. The main results we have obtained can be summarized as follows: (a) massive close-binary systems will start to…
Our understanding of massive star evolution is in flux, due to recent upheavals in our view of mass loss, and observations of a high binary fraction among O-type stars. Mass-loss rates for standard metallicity-dependent winds of hot stars…
Aims: Recent theoretical predictions for the winds of Wolf-Rayet stars indicate that their mass-loss rates scale with the initial stellar metallicity in the local Universe.We aim to investigate how this predicted dependence affects the…
Some studies have claimed the existence of a stellar upper-mass limit of 150 Msun. A factor that is often overlooked concerns the issue that there might be a significant difference between the present-day and the initial mass of the most…
We examine the dependence of the wind-wind collision and subsequent X-ray emission from the massive WR+O star binary WR~22 on the acceleration of the stellar winds, radiative cooling, and orbital motion. Simulations were performed with…
Massive stars are powerful cosmic engines. In the phases immediately preceding core-collapse, massive stars in the Galaxy with $M_i \gtrsim 20$ $M_{\odot}$ may appear as classical Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars. As the final contribution of a…
Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are evolved massive stars with strong fast stellar winds. WR stars in our Galaxy have shown three possible sources of X-ray emission associated with their winds: shocks in the winds, colliding stellar winds, and…
Massive stars are essential to understand a variety of branches of astronomy including galaxy and star cluster evolution, nucleosynthesis and supernovae, pulsars and black holes. It has become evident that massive star evolution is very…