Related papers: WR146 - observing the OB-type companion
Many Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars have optically thick winds that cloak the hydrostatic layers of the underlying star. In these cases, traditional spectral analysis methods are plagued by degeneracies that make it difficult to constrain parameters…
Winds of massive stars are an important ingredient in determining their evolution, final remnant mass, and feedback to the surrounding interstellar medium. We compare empirical results for OB star winds at low metallicity with theoretical…
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…
We present mid-infrared spectra of the microquasar SS 433 obtained with the Infrared Space Observatory (spectroscopic mode of ISOPHOT) and compare them to the spectra of four Wolf-Rayet stars. The mid-infrared spectrum of SS 433 shows…
Do some Wolf-Rayet stars owe their strong winds to something else besides radiation pressure? The answer to this question is still not entirely obvious, especially in certain Wolf-Rayet subclasses, mainly WN8 and WC9. Both of these types of…
Previous studies have demonstrated that putatively single nitrogen-type Wolf-Rayet stars (WN stars) without known companions are X-ray sources. However, almost all WN star X-ray detections so far have been of earlier WN2 - WN6 spectral…
The WR binary CV Serpentis (= WR113, WC8d + O8-9IV) has been a source of mystery since it was shown that its atmospheric eclipses change with time over decades, in addition to its sporadic dust production. The first high-precision…
Several tens of massive binary systems display indirect, or even strong evidence for non-thermal radio emission, hence their particle accelerator status. These objects are referred to as particle-accelerating colliding-wind binaries…
The hot WN star WR2 (HD6327) has been claimed to have many singular characteristics. To explain its unusually rounded and relatively weak emission line profiles, it has been proposed that WR2 is rotating close to break-up with a…
Classical Wolf-Rayet stars are the descendants of massive OB stars that have lost their hydrogen envelopes and are burning helium in their cores prior to exploding as type Ib/c supernovae. The mechanisms for losing their hydrogen envelopes…
The migration of profile sub-peaks identified in time-monitored optical emission lines of Wolf-Rayet star spectra provides a direct diagnostic of the dynamics of their stellar winds via a measured line-of-sight velocity change per unit…
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…
We present radio observations of the unique, recently formed, planetary nebula (PN) associated with a very long-period OH/IR variable star V1018 Sco that is unequivocally still in its asymptoticgiant branch phase. Two regions within the…
The stellar winds of massive stars show large changes in mass-loss rates and terminal velocities during their evolution from O-star through the Luminous Blue Variable phase to the Wolf-Rayet phase. The luminosity remains approximately…
In this paper, high quality spectropolarimetric observations of the Wolf-Rayet (WR) Star WR1 (HD4004) obtained with ESPaDOnS at CFHT are presented. All major emission lines present in the spectrum show depolarization in the relative Stokes…
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 have performed the near-infrared photometric monitoring observations of two TeV gamma-ray binaries with O-stars (LS 5039 and 1FGL J1018.6-5856), using IRSF/SIRIUS at SAAO, in order to study the stellar parameters and their perturbations…
Context: Nonthermal radio emission in massive stars is expected to arise in wind-wind collisions occurring inside a binary system. One such case, the O-type star Cyg OB2 #9, was proven to be a binary only four years ago, but the orbital…
We have spectroscopically discovered a pair of twin, nitrogen-type, hydrogen-rich, Wolf-Rayet stars (WN8-9h) that are both surrounded by circular, mid-infrared-bright nebulae detected with the Spitzer Space Telescope and MIPS instrument.…
Aims: We wish to study the origin of the X-ray emission of three massive stars in the Cyg OB2 association: Cyg OB2 #5, #8A, #12. Methods: To this aim, dedicated X-ray observations from XMM and Swift are used, as well as archival ROSAT and…