Related papers: UV Spectropolarimetry with Polstar: Massive Star B…
Unpulsed, high-energy emission from pulsar binaries can be attributed to the interaction of a pulsar wind with that of a companion star. At the shock between the outflows, particles carried away from the pulsar magnetosphere are accelerated…
Fast-rotating Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are potential progenitors of long gamma-ray bursts, but observational verification is challenging. Spectral lines from their expanding stellar wind obscure accurate rotational velocity measurements.…
One of the most intriguing spectral features of WR binary stars is the presence of time-dependent line profiles. Long term observations of several systems revealed the periodicity of this variability, synchronized with the orbital movement.…
Linear polarimetry of unresolved stars is a powerful method for discerning or constraining the geometry of a source and its environment, since spherical sources produce no net polarization. However, a general challenge to interpreting…
We use a luminous fast magnetic rotator model to analyze the influence of a magnetic field on the linear waves induced in the wind of a massive star by the radiative instability. We show that a twisted magnetic field can drive a strong wind…
X-ray emission is ubiquitous among massive stars. In the last decade, X-ray observations revolutionized our perception of stellar winds but opened a Pandora's box of urgent problems. X-rays penetrating stellar winds suffer mainly continuum…
The topic of wind-clumping has been the subject of much activity in recent years, due to the impact that it can have on derived mass-loss rates. Here we present an alternative method of investigating wind-clumping, that of polarimetry. We…
Because most massive stars have been or will be affected by a companion during the course of their evolution, we cannot afford to neglect binaries when discussing the progenitors of supernovae and GRBs. Analyzing linear polarization in the…
Interacting binaries are of general interest as laboratories for investigating the physics of accretion, which gives rise to the bulk of high-energy radiation in the Galaxy. They allow us to probe stellar evolution processes that cannot be…
Approximately 7% of massive stars host stable surface magnetic fields that are strong enough to alter stellar evolution through their effect on the stellar wind. It is therefore crucial to characterize the strength and structure of these…
The high luminosity of Very Massive Stars (VMS) means that radiative forces play an important, dynamical role both in the structure and stability of their stellar envelope, and in driving strong stellar-wind mass loss. Focusing on the…
Symbiotic stars are long-period interacting binaries where the compact objects, most commonly a white dwarf, is embedded in the dense stellar wind of an evolved companion star. UV and soft X-ray emission of the accretion disk and nuclear…
Recent large-scale spectropolarimetric surveys have established that a small but significant percentage of massive stars host stable, surface dipolar magnetic fields with strengths on the order of kG. These fields channel the dense,…
Understanding the evolution of massive binary stars requires accurate estimates of their masses. This understanding is critically important because massive star evolution can potentially lead to gravitational wave sources such as binary…
Mass loss is a key process in the evolution of massive stars, and must be understood quantitatively to be successfully included in broader astrophysical applications. In this review, we discuss various aspects of radiation driven mass loss,…
Compression of the stellar winds from rapidly rotating hot stars is described by the wind compression model. However, it was also shown that rapid rotation leads to rotational distortion of the stellar surface, resulting in the appearance…
We investigate the structure and X-ray emission from the colliding stellar winds in massive star binaries. We find that the opening angle of the contact discontinuity (CD) is overestimated by several formulae in the literature at very small…
WR 25 is a colliding-wind binary star system comprised of a very massive O2.5If*/WN6 primary and an O-star secondary in a 208-day period eccentric orbit. These hot stars have strong, highly-supersonic winds which interact to form a bright…
In an early-type, massive star binary system, X-ray bright shocks result from the powerful collision of stellar winds driven by radiation pressure on spectral line transitions. We examine the influence of the X-rays from the wind-wind…
Context. In binary star systems, the winds from the two components impact each other, leading to strong shocks and regions of enhanced density and temperature. Potentially habitable circumbinary planets must continually be exposed to these…