Related papers: Interpretative Modeling of Structured Winds Using …
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…
Polarization observations yield otherwise unobtainable information about the geometrical structure of unresolved objects. In this talk we review the evidences for non-spherically symmetric structures around Luminous Hot Stars from…
The winds of massive stars are important for their direct impact on the interstellar medium, and for their influence on the final state of a star prior to it exploding as a supernova. However, the dynamics of these winds is understood…
As sources of chemical enrichment, ionizing radiation and energetic feedback, massive stars drive the ecology of their host galaxies despite their relative rarity, additionally to yielding compact remnants, which can generate gravitational…
This thesis discusses the influence of magnetic fields on the instability of line-driven winds in O-stars and Wolf-Rayet stars. This combination is an important concept to understand the strong, observed winds from Wolf-Rayet stars. In the…
Clumping in the winds of massive stars may significantly reduce empirical mass-loss rates, and which in turn may have a large impact on our understanding of massive star evolution. Here, we investigate wind-clumping through the linear…
Massive star winds are structured both stochastically ("clumps") and often coherently (Co-rotation Interaction Regions, or CIRs). Evidence for CIRs threading the winds of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars arises from multiple diagnostics including…
Massive star winds are complex radiation-hydrodynamic (sometimes magnetohydrodynamic) outflows that are propelled by their enormously strong luminosities. The winds are often found to be structured and variable, but can also display…
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…
Massive colliding wind binary stars serve as laboratories for the study of strong-shock physics. In these systems fundamental flow parameters (velocities, densities, directions) are often well known, and photon fields important for Compton…
PolStar is an Explorer-class far ultraviolet (FUV) spectropolarimetry mission designed to target massive stars and their environments. PolStar will take advantage of resonance lines only available in the FUV to measure for the first time…
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…
Polytropic models of stellar winds remain to be useful tools because they allow for a simple description of the energy balance of the expanding plasma without explicitly specifying potentially complex energy transport processes like, e.g.,…
Massive star binaries are critical laboratories for measuring masses and stellar wind mass-loss rates. A major challenge is inferring viewing inclination and extracting information about the colliding wind interaction (CWI) region.…
I start with a discussion of spherical winds and small-scale clumping, before continuing with various theories that have been proposed to predict how mass loss depends on stellar rotation -- both in terms of wind strength, as well as the…
In this paper we present Complete Stellar models (CoStar) for massive stars, which treat the stellar interior and atmosphere, including its wind. Particular emphasis is given to Wolf-Rayet stars. We address the question of the effective…
It is observationally as well as theoretically well established that the winds of hot, massive OB-stars are highly structured on a broad range of spatial scales. This paper first discusses consequences of the small-scale structures…
This review describes the evidence for small-scale structure, `clumping', in the radiation line-driven winds of hot, massive stars. In particular, we focus on examining to what extent simulations of the strong instability inherent to…
The high luminosity of massive, early-type stars drives strong stellar winds through line scattering of the stars continuum radiation. Their momenta contribute substantially to the dynamics and energetics of the ambient interstellar medium…
Many open questions remain about massive stars, for example about their evolution, their wind, and their maximum mass at formation. These issues could be ideally adressed by the Pollux UV spectropolarimeter onboard LUVOIR. Here we present…