Related papers: Visual Orbits of Wolf-Rayet Stars I: The Orbit of …

Classical Wolf-Rayet stars are descendants of massive OB-type stars that have lost their hydrogen-rich envelopes, and are in the final stages of stellar evolution, possibly exploding as type Ib/c supernovae. It is understood that the…

Wolf-Rayet stars represent one of the final stages of massive stellar evolution. Relatively little is known about this short-lived phase and we currently lack reliable mass, distance, and binarity determinations for a representative sample.…

Several long-period binaries with a carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet star and an O star produce dust in their wind collisions. In eccentric binaries, this is seen most strongly near periastron passage. The exact conditions leading to dust creation…

We report on interferometric observations with the CHARA Array of two classical Wolf-Rayet stars in suspected binary systems, namely WR 137 and WR 138. In both cases, we resolve the component stars to be separated by a few milliarcseconds.…

Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are luminous massive blue stars thought to be immediate precursors to the supernova terminating their brief lives. The existence of dust shells around such stars has been enigmatic since their discovery some 30 years…

Some carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet stars (WC stars) show an infrared excess from dust emission. Dust forms in the collision of the WC wind with a companion star's wind. As this dust is carried towards the ISM at close to the WCd wind speed and the…

WR 137 (HD 192641) is a binary system consisting of a carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet star and an Oe companion star in a 13-year orbit. Near periastron, the winds of the two stars collide and form carbonaceous dust. We obtained three mid-infrared…

Wolf-Rayet (WR) 140 is the archetypal periodic dust-forming colliding-wind binary that hosts a carbon-rich WR (WC) star and an O-star companion with an orbital period of 7.93 years and an orbital eccentricity of 0.9. Throughout the past…

Much of the carbonaceous dust observed in the early universe may originate from colliding wind binaries (CWBs) hosting hot, luminous Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars. Downstream of the shock between the stellar winds there exists a suitable…

Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are evolved massive stars, presumably on their way to becoming supernova. They are characterized by high luminosities and fast and dense stellar winds. We have detected signs of a radio continuum pinwheel associated…

We present the results of an optical spectroscopic study of the massive Wolf-Rayet binary WR137. These data cover the dust-formation maximum in 1997. Combining all available measurements of radial velocities, we derive, for the first time,…

Carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet binaries are a prominent source of carbonaceous dust that contribute to the dust budget of galaxies. The "textbook" example of an episodic dust producing WR binary, WR140 (HD193793), provides us with an ideal…

Massive colliding-wind binaries that host a Wolf-Rayet (WR) star present a potentially important source of dust and chemical enrichment in the interstellar medium (ISM). However, the chemical composition and survival of dust formed from…

We present high-resolution infrared (2--18 micron) images of the archetypal periodic dust-making Wolf-Rayet binary system WR140 (HD 193793) taken between 2001 and 2005, and multi-colour (J -- [19.5]) photometry observed between 1989 and…

The eccentric WR+O binary system WR 140 produces dust for a few months at intervals of 7.94 yrs coincident with periastron passage. We present the first resolved images of this dust shell, at binary phases ~0.039 and ~0.055, using aperture…

The Wolf-Rayet (WR) binary system WR140 is a close (0.9-16.7 mas) binary star consisting of an O5 primary and WC7 companion and is known as the archetype of episodic dust-producing WRs. Dust in WR binaries is known to form in a confined…

Some hot, massive, population-I Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars of the carbon subclass are known to be prolific dust-producers. How dust can form in such a hostile environment remains a mystery. Here we report the discovery of a relatively cool,…

Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are helium-burning, evolved massive stars which have had most of their hydrogen-rich outer layers removed either through stellar winds and/or binary stripping. Here we report on LMC173-1, a WN3+O binary located in the…

We present the first visual orbit for the nitrogen-rich Wolf-Rayet binary, WR 133 (WN5o + O9I) based on observations made with the CHARA Array and the MIRC-X combiner. This orbit represents the first visual orbit for a WN star and only the…

We present updated orbital elements for the Wolf-Rayet (WR) binary WR\,140 (HD\,193793; WC7pd + O5.5fc). The new orbital elements were derived using previously published measurements along with {\color{black}160} new radial velocity…