Related papers: Asymmetric Wolf-Rayet winds: implications for GRB …
Radio observations of Type Ib/c supernovae suggest that circumstellar interaction takes place with a wide range of wind densities, comparable to that seen in Galactic Wolf-Rayet stars. Efficient production of magnetic field in the shocked…
The envelopes of stars near the Eddington limit are prone to various instabilities. A high Eddington factor in connection with the Fe opacity peak leads to convective instability, and a corresponding envelope inflation may induce…
Wind-blown bubbles, from those around massive O and Wolf-Rayet stars, to superbubbles around OB associations and galactic winds in starburst galaxies, have a dominant role in determining the structure of the Interstellar Medium. X-ray…
We present spectra of the afterglow of GRB 021004 taken with WHT ISIS and VLT FORS1 at three epochs spanning 0.49--6.62 days after the burst. We observe strong absorption likely coming from the host galaxy, alongside absorption in HI, SiIV…
Fine-structure mid-infrared emission lines with critical densities in the regime 10^4 to 10^6 cm^-3 can be employed to probe the outflow from Wolf-Rayet stars at radii of \sim 10^15 cm. Narrow-band mid-infrared imaging and spectroscopy of…
The X-ray emission from the massive binary WR 146R is analysed in the framework of the colliding stellar wind (CSW) picture. The theoretical CSW model spectra match well the shape of the observed X-ray spectrum of WR 146R but they…
We modelled the Chandra and RXTE X-ray spectra of the massive binary WR 140 in the framework of the standard colliding stellar wind (CSW) picture. Models with partial electron heating at the shock fronts are a better representation of the…
The structure and evolution of wind-blown bubbles (WBBs) around massive stars has primarily been investigated using an energy-conserving model of wind-blown bubbles. While this model is useful in explaining the general properties of the…
WR21 and WR31 are two WR+O binaries with short periods, quite similar to the case of V444 Cyg. The XMM-Newton observatory has monitored these two objects and clearly revealed phase-locked variations as expected from colliding winds. The…
The dynamics of the wind-wind collision in massive stellar binaries is investigated using three-dimensional hydrodynamical models which incorporate gravity, the driving of the winds, the orbital motion of the stars, and radiative cooling of…
We continue our numerical analysis of the morphological and energetic influence of massive stars on their ambient interstellar medium for a 35 solar mass star that evolves from the main sequence through red supergiant and Wolf-Rayet phases,…
A review of spectroscopic results obtained from Chandra High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer and XMM-Newton Reflection Grating Spectrometer observations of several wind-fed high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) is presented. These…
High-resolution radio observations have revealed that non-thermal radio emission in WR stars arises where the stellar wind of the WR star collides with that of a binary companion. These colliding-wind binary (CWB) systems offer an important…
Afterglows of gamma-ray bursts are observed to produce light curves with the flux following power law evolution in time. However, recent observations reveal bright flares at times on the order of minutes to days. One proposed explanation…
In recent years, much studies have focused on determining the origin of the large-scale line-profile and/or photometric patterns of variability displayed by some apparently single Wolf-Rayet stars, with the existence of an unseen…
Most stars will experience episodes of substantial mass loss at some point in their lives. For very massive stars, mass loss dominates their evolution, although the mass loss rates are not known exactly, particularly once the star has left…
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…
We calculate the creation of electron--positron pairs in Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) resulting from the collision between scattered and outward moving gamma-ray photons. The number of pairs exceeds the number of ambient medium electrons…
A signification fraction of Galactic massive stars (> 8Mo) are ejected from their parent cluster and supersonically sail away through the interstellar medium (ISM). The winds of these fast-moving stars blow asymmetric bubbles thus creating…
Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) afterglows are commonly interpreted as synchrotron emission from a relativistic blast wave produced by a point explosion in an ambient medium, plausibly the interstellar medium of galaxies. We calculate the amplitude…