TY - JOUR A1 - Bomans, Dominik J. A1 - Becker, Andrew C. A1 - Kleemann, B. A1 - Weis, K. A1 - Pasquali, A. T1 - Luminous Wolf-Rayet stars at low metallicity JF - Wolf-Rayet Stars : Proceedings of an International Workshop held in Potsdam, Germany, 1.–5. June 2015 N2 - The evolution of massive stars in very low metallicity galaxies is less well observationally constrained than in environments more similar to the Milky Way, M33, or the LMC. We discuss in this contribution the current state of our program to search for and characterize Wolf-Rayet stars (and other massive emission line stars) in low metallicity galaxies in the Local Volume. Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-87635 SP - 51 EP - 54 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Weis, K. T1 - Family ties of WR to LBV nebulae yielding clues for stellar evolution JF - Wolf-Rayet Stars : Proceedings of an International Workshop held in Potsdam, Germany, 1.–5. June 2015 N2 - Luminous Blue Variables (LBVs) are stars is a transitional phase massive stars may enter while evolving from main-sequence to Wolf-Rayet stars. The to LBVs intrinsic photometric variability is based on the modulation of the stellar spectrum. Within a few years the spectrum shifts from OB to AF type and back. During their cool phase LBVs are close to the Humphreys-Davidson (equivalent to Eddington/Omega-Gamma) limit. LBVs have a rather high mass loss rate, with stellar winds that are fast in the hot and slower in the cool phase of an LBV. These alternating wind velocities lead to the formation of LBV nebulae by wind-wind interactions. A nebula can also be formed in a spontaneous giant eruption in which larger amounts of mass are ejected. LBV nebulae are generally small (< 5 pc) mainly gaseous circumstellar nebulae, with a rather large fraction of LBV nebulae being bipolar. After the LBV phase the star will turn into a Wolf-Rayet star, but note that not all WR stars need to have passed the LBV phase. Some follow from the RSG and the most massive directly from the MS phase. In general WRs have a large mass loss and really fast stellar winds. The WR wind may interact with winds of earlier phases (MS, RSG) to form WR nebulae. As for WR with LBV progenitors the scenario might be different, here no older wind is present but an LBV nebula! The nature of WR nebulae are therefore manifold and in particular the connection (or family ties) of WR to LBV nebulae is important to understand the transition between these two phases, the evolution of massive stars, their winds, wind-wind and wind-nebula interactions. Looking at the similarities and differences of LBV and WR nebula, figuring what is a genuine LBV and WR nebula are the basic question addressed in the analysis presented here. Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-87949 SP - 167 EP - 170 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Becker, Andrew C. A1 - Bomans, Dominik J. A1 - Weis, K. T1 - Finding new Wolf-Rayet stars in the Magellanic Clouds JF - Wolf-Rayet Stars : Proceedings of an International Workshop held in Potsdam, Germany, 1.–5. June 2015 N2 - Obtaining a complete census of massive, evolved stars in a galaxy would be a key ingredient for testing stellar evolution models. However, as the evolution of stars is also strongly dependent on their metallicity, it is inevitable to have this kind of data for a variety of galaxies with different metallicities. Between 2009 and 2011, we conducted the Magellanic Clouds Massive Stars and Feedback Survey (MSCF); a spatially complete, multi-epoch, broad- and narrow-band optical imaging survey of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. With the inclusion of shallow images, we are able to give a complete photometric catalog of stars between B ≈ 18 and B ≈ 19 mag. These observations were augmented with additional photometric data of similar spatial res- olution from UV to IR (e.g. from GALEX, 2MASS and Spitzer) in order to sample a large portion of the spectral energy distribution of the brightest stars (B < 16 mag) in the Magel- lanic Clouds. Using these data, were are able to train a machine learning algorithm that gives us a good estimate of the spectral type of tens of thousands of stars. This method can be applied to the search for Wolf-Rayet-Stars to obtain a sample of candi- dates for follow-up observations. As this approach can, in principle, be adopted for any resolved galaxy as long as sufficient photometric data is available, it can form an effective alternative method to the classical strategies (e.g. He II filter imaging). Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-87618 SP - 47 EP - 50 ER -