Related papers: Wolf-Rayet Colliding Wind Binaries
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…
The colliding wind binary (CWB) systems \eta\ Carinae and WR140 provide unique laboratories for X-ray astrophysics. Their wind-wind collisions produce hard X-rays that have been monitored extensively by several X-ray telescopes, including…
Nearly all types of massive stars with radiatively driven stellar winds are X-ray sources that can be observed by the presently operating powerful X-ray telescopes. In this review I briefly address recent advances in our understanding of…
A very small fraction of (runaway) massive stars have masses exceeding $60$-$70\, \rm M_{\odot}$ and are predicted to evolve as Luminous-Blue-Variable and Wolf-Rayet stars before ending their lives as core-collapse supernovae. Our 2D…
An X-ray study of a deeply embedded Wolf-Rayet star WR 121a has been carried out using long-term (spanning over ~12 years) archival observations from Chandra and XMM-Newton. For the first time, a periodic variation with a period of 4.1 days…
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…
We present the detection of the first candidate colliding-wind binary (CWB) in M33, located in the giant H II region NGC 604. The source was first identified in archival {\it Chandra} imaging as a relatively soft X-ray point source, with…
The final explosive fate of massive stars, and the nature of the compact remnants they leave behind (black holes and neutron stars), are major open questions in astrophysics. Many massive stars are stripped of their outer hydrogen envelopes…
WR 140 is a long-period, highly eccentric Wolf-Rayet star binary system with exceptionally well-determined orbital and stellar parameters. Bright, variable X-ray emission is generated in shocks produced by the collision of the winds of the…
Examination of the temporal variability properties of several strong optical recombination lines in a large sample of Galactic Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars reveals possible trends, especially in the more homogeneous WC than the diverse WN…
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…
Massive WR+O star systems produce high-temperature, shock-heated plasma where the wind of the WR star and that of its binary companion collide - the wind-collision region (WCR). The WCR is a source of thermal (e.g. hard X-rays) and…
Large wind kinetic power of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars make them ideal targets in low radio frequencies to search for non-thermal emission due to relativistic particle acceleration. In this paper, we present observations of two WR stars, WR 114…
Accumulating evidence points to a binary nature for the Wolf-Rayet ([WC]) central stars, a group that constitutes about 15% of all central stars of planetary nebula. From ISO observations, a dual dust chemistry (oxygen- and carbon-rich) has…
Using a code that employs a self-consistent method for computing the effects of photoionization on circumstellar gas dynamics, we model the formation of wind-driven nebulae around massive Wolf-Rayet (W-R) stars. Our algorithm incorporates a…
Stellar winds are a major source of uncertainty in understanding the life and deaths of massive stars. Across studies in the field, prescriptions for stellar winds differ substantially in both their physical assumptions and implementation,…
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…
The recent discovery of a spectacular dust plume in the system 2XMM J160050.7-514245 (referred to as "Apep") suggested a physical origin in a colliding-wind binary by way of the "Pinwheel" mechanism. Observational data pointed to a…
We investigate the morphology of the collision front between the stellar winds of binary components in two long-period binary systems, one consisting of a hydrogen rich Wolf-Rayet star (WNL) and an O-star and the other of a Luminous Blue…
The collapsar model for long gamma-ray bursts requires a rapidly rotating Wolf-Rayet star as progenitor. We test the idea of producing rapidly rotating Wolf-Rayet stars in massive close binaries through mass accretion and consecutive…