Related papers: Pinwheel nebula around WR 98a

The problem of explaining the X-ray emission properties of the massive, close binary WR 20a is discussed. Located near the cluster core of Westerlund 2, WR 20a is composed of two nearly identical Wolf- Rayet stars of 82 and 83 solar masses…

Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are helium-burning, evolved massive stars which have had most of their hydrogen-rich outer layers removed either through stellar winds and/or binary stripping. Here we report on LMC173-1, a WN3+O binary located in the…

We present the results of a four-month, spectroscopic campaign of the Wolf-Rayet dust-making binary, WR137. We detect only small-amplitude, random variability in the CIII5696 emission line and its integrated quantities (radial velocity,…

The massive evolved Wolf-Rayet stars sometimes occur in colliding-wind binary systems in which dust plumes are formed as a result of the collision of stellar winds. These structures are known to encode the parameters of the binary orbit and…

WR~102-1 was detected by Suzaku as a conspicuous point source in the 6.7 keV intensity map of the central region of the Milky Way. The source was suggested as a possible Wolf-Rayet binary based on its X-ray and infrared spectral…

We present new spectra of WR 140 (HD 193793) in the JHK bands with some covering the 1.083-micron He I emission line at higher resolution, observed between 2000 October and 2003 May to cover its 2001 periastron passage. The WC7 + O4-5…

We present XMM-Newton observations of the WC binary Theta Muscae (WR 48), the second brightest Wolf-Rayet binary in optical wavelengths. The system consists of a short-period (19.1375 days) WC5/WC6 + O6/O7V binary and possibly has an…

We report the serendipitous discovery of a ring nebula around a candidate Wolf-Rayet (WR) star, HBHA 4202-22, in Cygnus using the Spitzer Space Telescope archival data. Our spectroscopic follow-up observations confirmed the WR nature of…

We study relatively isolated massive WN-type stars in the Galactic center. The K-band spectra of WR102ka and WR102c are exploited to infer the stellar parameters and to compute synthetic stellar spectra using the Potsdam Wolf-Rayet (PoWR)…

A combined mid-IR spectrum of five colliding-wind, massive, dust-producing Population I Wolf-Rayet (WR) binaries shows a wealth of absorption and emission details coming from the circumstellar dust envelopes, as well as from the…

Since the discovery, with the EINSTEIN satellite, of strong X-ray emission associated with HD93162 (=WR25), this object has been predicted to be a colliding-wind binary system. However, radial-velocity variations that would prove the…

During the summer of 2013, a 4-month spectroscopic campaign took place to observe the variabilities in three Wolf-Rayet stars. The spectroscopic data have been analyzed for WR 134 (WN6b), to better understand its behaviour and long-term…

Massive, evolved stars play a crucial role in the metal-enrichment, dust budget, and energetics of the interstellar medium, however, the details of their evolution are uncertain because of their rarity and short lifetimes before exploding…

Photometry at 3.4 and 4.6 micron of 128 Population~I WC type Wolf-Rayet stars in the Galaxy and 12 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) observed in the WISE NEOWISE-R survey was searched for evidence of circumstellar dust emission and its…

In response to ESO's call for proposals for second generation instruments for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), a consortium is currently developing the VLTI-Spectro-Imager (VSI). In the context of the Phase A study, a science…

The study of Wolf-Rayet stars plays an important role in evolutionary theories of massive stars. Among these objects, ~ 20% are known to be in binary systems and can therefore be used for the mass determination of these stars. Most of these…

We report on interferometric observations with the CHARA Array of two classical Wolf-Rayet stars in suspected binary systems, namely WR 137 and WR 138. In both cases, we resolve the component stars to be separated by a few milliarcseconds.…

We present infrared aperture masking interferometry (AMI) observations of newly formed dust from the colliding winds of the massive binary system Wolf-Rayet (WR) 137 with JWST using the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph…

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…

We have obtained far-infrared Herschel PACS imaging and spectroscopic observations of the nebular environment of the luminous blue variable WRAY 15-751. These images clearly show that the main, dusty nebula is a shell of radius 0.5 pc and…