Wolf-Rayet Colliding Wind Binaries
| Autor: | White, Ryan M. T., Tuthill, Peter |
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| Rok vydání: | 2024 |
| Předmět: | |
| Druh dokumentu: | Working Paper |
| Popis: | Wolf-Rayet stars embody the final stable phase of the most massive stars immediately before their evolution is terminated in a supernova explosion. They are responsible for some of the most extreme and energetic phenomena in stellar physics, driving fast and dense stellar winds that are powered by extraordinarily high mass-loss rates arising from their near Eddington limit luminosity. When found in binary systems comprised of two hot wind-driving components, a colliding wind binary (CWB) is formed, manifesting dramatic observational signatures from the radio to X-rays. Among the wealth of rare and exotic phenomenology associated with CWBs, perhaps the most unexpected is the production of copious amounts of warm dust. A necessary condition seems to be one binary component being a carbon-rich WR star -- providing favorable chemistry for dust nucleation from the wind -- however a detailed understanding of the physics underlying this phenomenon has not been established. Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures. This is a pre-print of a chapter for the Encyclopedia of Astrophysics (edited by I. Mandel, section editor F. Schneider) to be published by Elsevier as a Reference Module |
| Databáze: | arXiv |
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