TY  - JOUR
A1  - Oskinova, Lida
A1  - Hamann, Wolf-Rainer
A1  - Feldmeier, Achim
A1  - Ignace, Richard
A1  - Chu, You-Hua
T1  - Discovery of X-ray emission from the Wolf-Rayet star WR 142 of oxygen subtype
N2  - We report the discovery of weak yet hard X-ray emission from the Wolf-Rayet (WR) star WR 142 with the XMM- Newton X-ray telescope. Being of spectral subtype WO2, WR 142 is a massive star in a very advanced evolutionary stage shortly before its explosion as a supernova or. gamma-ray burst. This is the first detection of X-ray emission from a WO- type star. We rule out any serendipitous X-ray sources within approximate to 1 '' of WR 142. WR 142 has an X- ray luminosity of L-X approximate to 7 x 10(30) erg s(-1), which constitutes only less than or similar to 10(-8) of its bolometric luminosity. The hard X-ray spectrum suggests a plasma temperature of about 100 MK. Commonly, X-ray emission from stellar winds is attributed to embedded shocks due to the intrinsic instability of the radiation driving. From qualitative considerations we conclude that this mechanism cannot account for the hardness of the observed radiation. There are no hints for a binary companion. Therefore the only remaining, albeit speculative explanation must refer to magnetic activity. Possibly related, WR 142 seems to rotate extremely fast, as indicated by the unusually round profiles of its optical emission lines. Our detection implies that the wind of WR 142 must be relatively transparent to X-rays, which can be due to strong wind ionization, wind clumping, or nonspherical geometry from rapid rotation.
Y1  - 2009
UR  - http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/693/1/L44
SN  - 0004-637X
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gvaramadze, Vasily V.
A1  - Fabrika, Sergei Nikolaevich
A1  - Hamann, Wolf-Rainer
A1  - Sholukhova, Olga N.
A1  - Valeev, Azamat F.
A1  - Goranskij, Vitaly P.
A1  - Cherepashchuk, Anatol M.
A1  - Bomans, Dominik J.
A1  - Oskinova, Lida
T1  - Discovery of a new Wolf-Rayet star and its ring nebula in Cygnus
N2  - 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 this star (we named it WR 138a) and showed that it belongs to the WN8-9h subtype. We thereby add a new example to the known sample of late WN stars with circumstellar nebulae. We analysed the spectrum of WR 138a by using the Potsdam Wolf-Rayet (PoWR) model atmospheres, obtaining a stellar temperature of 40 kK. The stellar wind composition is dominated by helium with 20 per cent of hydrogen. The stellar spectrum is highly reddened and absorbed (EB- V = 2.4 mag, A(V) = 7.4 mag). Adopting a stellar luminosity of log L/L-circle dot = 5.3, the star has a mass-loss rate of 10-4.7 M- circle dot yr-1, and resides in a distance of 4.2 kpc. We measured the proper motion for WR 138a and found that it is a runaway star with a peculiar velocity of similar or equal to 50 km s-1. Implications of the runaway nature of WR 138a for constraining the mass of its progenitor star and understanding the origin of its ring nebula are discussed.
Y1  - 2009
UR  - http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/issn?DESCRIPTOR=PRINTISSN&VALUE=0035-8711
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.15492.x
SN  - 0035-8711
ER  -