Related papers: Wolf-Rayet Stars as IMF Probes
Wolf-Rayet (WR) galaxies provide detailed information on massive star populations in starbursts and thereby represent ideal objects to determine accurate ages for young systems, to measure the burst duration, and to probe the upper end of…
Wolf-Rayet stars have been detected in a large number of galaxies experiencing intense bursts of star formation. All stars initially more massive than a certain, metallicity-dependent, value are believed to experience the Wolf-Rayet phase…
Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars comprise a class of stars whose spectra are dominated by strong, broad emission lines that are associated with copious mass loss. In the massive-star regime, roughly 90% of the known WR stars are thought to have…
Wolf-Rayet stars have been identified as objects in their final phase of massive star evolution. It has been suggested that Wolf-Rayet stars are the progenitors of long-duration gamma ray bursts in low metallicity environments. However,…
Massive Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars comprise a spectroscopic class characterized by high temperatures (Teff > ~30 kK) and powerful and rapid stellar winds. Hydrogen-rich WR stars represent the most massive stars in existence (M > ~100 Msun),…
Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are the evolved descendants of massive O-type stars and are considered to be progenitor candidates for Type Ib/c core-collapse supernovae (SNe). Recent results of our HST/WFC3 survey of Wolf-Rayet stars in M101 are…
(Abridged) We have performed a comprehensive multiwavelength analysis of a sample of 20 starburst galaxies that show the presence of a substantial population of massive stars. The main aims are the study of the massive star formation and…
Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars, as they are advanced stages of the life of massive stars, provide a good test for various physical processes involved in the modelling of massive stars, such as rotation and mass loss. In this paper, we show the…
Detection and analysis of Wolf-Rayet (WR) star populations in young starbursts is a powerful tool to reveal the properties of the star-forming events. We present new high S/N optical spectra of a sample of well-known WR galaxies, in which…
Young super star clusters and young compact massive star forming regions can provide useful information on their burst properties (age, burst duration, SFR), the upper end of the IMF and yield new constraints on the evolution of massive…
Preliminary results from spectrophotometric observations of galaxies with very young starbursts are presented. Starburst galaxies with an age of the burst in the range between 3 and 6 Myr have been observed and new detections of Wolf-Rayet…
As hosts of living high-mass stars, Wolf-Rayet (WR) regions or WR galaxies are ideal objects for constraining the high-mass end of the stellar initial mass function (IMF). We construct a large sample of 910 WR galaxies/regions that cover a…
The striking broad emission line spectroscopic appearance of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars has long defied analysis, due to the extreme physical conditions within their line and continuum forming regions. Recently, model atmosphere studies have…
Classical Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars mark an important stage in the late evolution of massive stars. As hydrogen-poor massive stars, these objects have lost their outer layers, while still losing further mass through strong winds indicated by…
Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are the evolved descendants of the most massive stars and show emission-line dominated spectra formed in their powerful stellar winds. Marking the final evolution stage before core collapse, the standard picture of WR…
The heavyweight stellar initial mass function (IMF) observed in the cores of massive early-type galaxies (ETGs) has been linked to formation of their cores in an initial swiftly-quenched rapid starburst. However, the outskirts of ETGs are…
Recent results for Galactic and Magellanic Cloud Wolf-Rayet stars are summarised based on line blanketed, clumped model atmospheres together with UV, optical and IR spectroscopy. The trend towards earlier WN and WC spectral types with…
We stress the importance of Wolf-Rayet stars for the understanding of the AGN phenomenon in galaxies. WR stars provide an unique opportunity to explore from the ground whether non-thermal nuclear activity and circumnuclear starbursts are…
We report the discovery of two new Wolf-Rayet (WR) galaxies: Mrk~1039, and F08208$+$2816. Two broad WR bumps at 5808\AA~ and 4650\AA~ indicate the presence of WCE and WNL star population in all two sources. We also confirm the presenceof WR…
Wolf-Rayet (WR) HII galaxies are local metal-poor star-forming galaxies, observed when the most massive stars are evolving from O stars to WR stars, making them template systems to study distant starbursts. We have been performing a program…