Related papers: UV Spectropolarimetry with Polstar: Massive Star B…
As sources of chemical enrichment, ionizing radiation and energetic feedback, massive stars drive the ecology of their host galaxies despite their relative rarity, additionally to yielding compact remnants, which can generate gravitational…
One objective of the Polstar spectropolarimetry mission is to characterize the degree of nonconservative mass transfer that occurs at various stages of binary evolution, from the initial mass reversal to the late Algol phase. The proposed…
Polarization provides additional diagnostic opportunities for probing the structured environments of massive stars as well as the illumination of those environments by stars that are not spherical. After a brief overview of polarization…
Massive colliding wind binary stars serve as laboratories for the study of strong-shock physics. In these systems fundamental flow parameters (velocities, densities, directions) are often well known, and photon fields important for Compton…
The high luminosity of massive, early-type stars drives strong stellar winds through line scattering of the stars continuum radiation. Their momenta contribute substantially to the dynamics and energetics of the ambient interstellar medium…
Massive star binaries are critical laboratories for measuring masses and stellar wind mass-loss rates. A major challenge is inferring viewing inclination and extracting information about the colliding wind interaction (CWI) region.…
The most massive stars are thought to lose a significant fraction of their mass in a steady wind during the main-sequence and blue supergiant phases. This in turn sets the stage for their further evolution and eventual supernova, with…
Spectropolarimetric techniques are a mainstay of astrophysical inquiry, ranging from Solar System objects to the Cosmic Background Radiation. This review highlights applications of stellar polarimetry for massive hot stars, particularly in…
Gamma-ray binaries emit most of their radiated power beyond ~10 MeV. The non-thermal emission is thought to arise from the interaction of the relativistic wind of a rotation-powered pulsar with the stellar wind of its massive (O or Be)…
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,…
Massive stars are extremely luminous and drive strong winds, blowing a large part of their matter into the galactic environment before they finally explode as a supernova. Quantitative knowledge of massive star feedback is required to…
Important insights into the formation, structure, evolution and environment of all types of stars can be obtained through the measurement of their winds and possible magnetospheres. However, this has hardly been done up to now mainly…
The Polstar mission will provide for a space-borne 60cm telescope operating at UV wavelengths with spectropolarimetric capability capturing all four Stokes parameters (intensity, two linear polarization components, and circular…
The Polstar small explorer concept is for an ultraviolet (UV) spectropolarimetry space telescope mission with a focus on massive star astrophysics. The instrument waveband will be from 115 nm - 286 nm for spectroscopy and 122 nm - 286 nm…
Massive stars, at least $\sim$ 10 times more massive than the Sun, have two key properties that make them the main drivers of evolution of star clusters, galaxies, and the Universe as a whole. On the one hand, the outer layers of massive…
Strong winds from massive stars are a topic of interest to a wide range of astrophysical fields. In High-Mass X-ray Binaries the presence of an accreting compact object on the one side allows to infer wind parameters from studies of the…
Binary systems containing a massive star and a non-accreting pulsar present strong interaction between the stellar and the pulsar winds. The properties of this interaction, which largely determine the non-thermal radiation in these systems,…
Mass-loss from massive stars is fundamental to stellar and galactic evolution and enrichment of the interstellar medium. Reliable determination of mass-loss rate is dependent upon unravelling details of massive star outflows, including…
UVMag is a medium-size space telescope equipped with a high-resolution spectropolarimeter working in the UV and visible domains. It will be proposed to ESA for a future M mission. It will allow scientists to study all types of stars as well…
Recent spectropolarimetric surveys (MiMeS, BOB) have revealed that approximately 7% of massive stars host stable, surface dipolar magnetic fields with strengths on the order of kG. These fields channel the dense radiatively driven stellar…