Related papers: From Dust to Nanodust: Resolving Circumstellar Dus…
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…
WR~102-1 was detected by Suzaku as a conspicuous point source in the 6.7 keV intensity map of the central region of the Milky Way. The source was suggested as a possible Wolf-Rayet binary based on its X-ray and infrared spectral…
We report the discovery of weak yet hard X-ray emission from the Wolf-Rayet (WR) star WR142 with the XMM-Newton X-ray telescope. Being of spectral subtype WO2, WR142 is a massive star in a very advanced evolutionary stage, short before its…
Since the discovery, with the EINSTEIN satellite, of strong X-ray emission associated with HD93162 (=WR25), this object has been predicted to be a colliding-wind binary system. However, radial-velocity variations that would prove the…
Recent IR observations indicate that many massive binary systems present dust formation episodes, in regions close to the stars, during the periastron passage. These systems are known to be high-energy sources, and it is believed that wind…
Observations of the 1.083-micron He I line in WR140 (HD 193793) show P-Cygni profiles which varied as the binary system went through periastron passage. A sub-peak appeared on the normally flat-topped emission component and then moved…
We present new radio and optical observations of the colliding-wind system WR146 aimed at understanding the nature of the companion to the Wolf-Rayet star and the collision of their winds. The radio observations reveal emission from three…
Results from the most extensive study of the time-evolving dust structure around the prototype "Pinwheel" nebula WR 104 are presented. Encompassing 11 epochs in three near-infrared filter bandpasses, a homogeneous imaging data set spanning…
We report the results of a high angular resolution near-infrared survey of dusty Wolf-Rayet stars using the Keck-1 Telescope, including new multi-wavelength images of the pinwheel nebulae WR 98a, WR 104, and WR 112. Angular sizes were…
Dusty Wolf-Rayet stars are few but remarkable in terms of dust production rates (up to one millionth of solar mass per year). Infrared excesses associated to mass-loss are found in the sub-types WC8 and WC9. Few WC9d stars are hosting a…
Dust production is one of the more curious phenomena observed in massive binary systems with interacting winds. The high temperatures, UV photon flux and violent shocks should destroy any dust grains that condense. However, in some extreme…
A campaign of 35 epochs of milli-arcsecond resolution VLBA observations of the archetype colliding wind WR+O star binary system WR140 show the wind-collision region (WCR) as a bow-shaped arc of emission that rotates as the highly eccentric…
We present new JWST observations of the nearby, prototypical edge-on, spiral galaxy NGC 891. The northern half of the disk was observed with NIRCam in its F150W and F277W filters. Absorption is clearly visible in the mid-plane of the F150W…
Massive, evolved stars play a crucial role in the metal-enrichment, dust budget, and energetics of the interstellar medium, however, the details of their evolution are uncertain because of their rarity and short lifetimes before exploding…
We study the evolution of the interstellar and circumstellar media around massive stars (M > 40M_{\odot}) from the main sequence through to the Wolf-Rayet stage by means of radiationhydrodynamic simulations. We use publicly available…
We modelled the Chandra and RXTE X-ray spectra of the massive binary WR 140 in the framework of the standard colliding stellar wind (CSW) picture. Models with partial electron heating at the shock fronts are a better representation of the…
We summarize new X-ray detections of four nitrogen-type Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars obtained in a limited survey aimed at establishing the X-ray properties of WN stars across their full range of spectral subtypes. None of the detected stars is so…
Massive Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars dominate the radiative and mechanical energy budget of galaxies and probe a critical phase in the evolution of massive stars prior to core-collapse. It is not known whether core He-burning WR stars (classical…
We attempt to determine the driver for clumping in hot-star winds by extending the measure of the spectral variability level of Galactic Wolf-Rayet stars to by far the hottest known among them, the WN2 star WR 2 and the WO2 stars WR 102 and…
The colliding wind binary WR140 produces dust in its shocked gas every periastron passage. While the infrared light curve is very repeatable, there are noticeable changes every cycle in the optical time-series photometry. In the phases…