Related papers: The runaway nature and origin of {\alpha} Crucis s…
The origin of massive field stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) has long been an enigma. The recent measurements of large offsets (~100 km/s) between the heliocentric radial velocities of some very massive (O2-type) field stars and…
Moderately strong shocks arise naturally when two subclusters merge. For instance, when a smaller subcluster falls into the gravitational potential of a more massive cluster, a bow shock is formed and moves together with the subcluster.…
OB runaway stars are massive stars moving through interstellar space at high velocities (up to 200 km/s), produced by dynamical ejections in young massive clusters or supernova explosions in massive binaries. They can travel several hundred…
The bow shocks of runaway stars with strong stellar winds of over 2000 km s$^{-1}$ can serve as particle acceleration sites. The conversion from stellar wind luminosity into particle acceleration power has an efficiency of the same order of…
Runaway, massive stars are not among the most numerous. However, the bow shocks built by their supersonic movement in the interstellar medium have been detected in the infrared range in many cases. Most recently, the stellar bow shocks have…
Runaway stars form bow shocks by sweeping up interstellar matter in their direction of motion. Theoretical models predict a spectrally wide non-thermal component reaching up to gamma-ray energies at a flux level detectable with current…
At least 5 per cent of the massive stars are moving supersonically through the interstellar medium (ISM) and are expected to produce a stellar wind bow shock. We explore how the mass loss and space velocity of massive runaway stars affect…
Anticipating the kinematic constraints from the Gaia mission, we perform an extensive numerical study of the evolution of massive binary systems to predict the peculiar velocities that stars obtain when their companion collapses and…
We assess the multi-wavelength observable properties of the bow shock around a runaway early type star using a combination of hydrodynamical modelling, radiative transfer calculations and synthetic imaging. Instabilities associated with the…
Massive runaway stars produce bow shocks through the interaction of their winds with the interstellar medium, with the prospect for particle acceleration by the shocks. These objects are consequently candidates for non-thermal emission. Our…
We constrain the proper motions of five OB stars associated with candidate stellar wind bow shocks in the Carina Nebula using HST ACS imaging over 9--10 year baselines. These proper motions allow us to directly compare each star's motion to…
A relevant fraction of massive stars are runaways, moving with a significant peculiar velocity with respect to their environment. Kicks from supernova explosions or the dynamical ejection of stars from clusters can account for the runaway…
We report the discovery of a bow shock around the high-mass X-ray binary (HMXB) 4U 1907+09 using the Spitzer Space Telescope 24 $\mu$m data (after Vela X-1 the second example of bow shocks associated with HMXBs). The detection of the bow…
Using archival Spitzer Space Telescope data, we identified for the first time a dozen runaway OB stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) through the detection of their bow shocks. The geometry of detected bow shocks allows us to infer the…
Alpha Crucis is the closest very high multiplicity massive star to the Sun. At its heart is the $4" \leftrightarrow 430 \text{ au}$ binary $\alpha^1$ (A) + $\alpha^2$ (B) Cru, which combined make up the 13th visually brightest star in the…
Runaway stars with peculiar high velocities can generate stellar bow shocks. Only a few bow shocks show clear radio emission. Our goal is to identify and characterize new stellar bow shocks around O and Be runaway stars in the infrared…
Pulsars have mean space velocities >~500 km/s. The consequent ram pressure results in tight confinement of the star's energetic wind, driving a bow shock into the surrounding medium. Pulsar bow shocks have long been regarded as a curiosity,…
Recent VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometer) observations determined the distances and proper motions of star-forming regions in spiral arms directly. They showed that star-forming regions and young stars have large peculiar motions, as…
A direct observation of the spiral structure of the Galaxy is hindered by our position in the middle of the Galactic plane. We propose a method based on the analysis of the birthplaces of high Galactic latitude runaway stars to map the…
Wolf-Rayet stars are advanced evolutionary stages of massive stars. Despite their large mass-loss rates and high wind velocities, none of them display a bow shock, although a fraction of them are classified as runaway. Our 2.5-D numerical…