Noel D. Richardson, Tomer Shenar, Olivier Roy-Loubier, Gail Schaefer, Anthony F. J. Moffat, Nicole St-Louis, Douglas R. Gies, Chris Farrington, Grant M. Hill, Peredur M. Williams, Kathryn Gordon, Herbert Pablo, Tahina Ramiaramanantsoa
- We report on interferometric observations with the CHARAArray of two classical Wolf-Rayet (WR) 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. The data were collected in the H band, and provide a measure of the fractional flux for both stars in each system. We find that the WR star is the dominant H-band light source in both systems (fWR, 137 = 0.59 +/- 0.04; fWR, 138 = 0.67 +/- 0.01), which is confirmed through both comparisons with estimated fundamental parameters for WR stars and O dwarfs, as well as through spectral modelling of each system. Our spectral modelling also provides fundamental parameters for the stars and winds in these systems. The results on WR 138 provide evidence that it is a binary system which may have gone through a previous mass-transfer episode to create the WR star. The separation and position of the stars in the WR 137 system together with previous results from the IOTA interferometer provides evidence thatWe report on interferometric observations with the CHARAArray of two classical Wolf-Rayet (WR) 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. The data were collected in the H band, and provide a measure of the fractional flux for both stars in each system. We find that the WR star is the dominant H-band light source in both systems (fWR, 137 = 0.59 +/- 0.04; fWR, 138 = 0.67 +/- 0.01), which is confirmed through both comparisons with estimated fundamental parameters for WR stars and O dwarfs, as well as through spectral modelling of each system. Our spectral modelling also provides fundamental parameters for the stars and winds in these systems. The results on WR 138 provide evidence that it is a binary system which may have gone through a previous mass-transfer episode to create the WR star. The separation and position of the stars in the WR 137 system together with previous results from the IOTA interferometer provides evidence that the binary is seen nearly edgeon. The possible edge-on orbit of WR 137 aligns well with the dust production site imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope during a previous periastron passage, showing that the dust production may be concentrated in the orbital plane.…
MetadatenAuthor details: | Noel D. Richardson, Tomer ShenarORCiDGND, Olivier Roy-Loubier, Gail Schaefer, Anthony F. J. Moffat, Nicole St-Louis, Douglas R. Gies, Chris Farrington, Grant M. Hill, Peredur M. Williams, Kathryn Gordon, Herbert Pablo, Tahina Ramiaramanantsoa |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw1585 |
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ISSN: | 0035-8711 |
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ISSN: | 1365-2966 |
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Title of parent work (English): | Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
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Publisher: | Oxford Univ. Press |
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Place of publishing: | Oxford |
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Publication type: | Article |
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Language: | English |
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Year of first publication: | 2016 |
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Publication year: | 2016 |
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Release date: | 2020/03/22 |
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Tag: | binaries: visual; stars: Wolf-Rayet; stars: individual: WR 137; stars: individual: WR 138; stars: mass-loss; stars: winds, outflows |
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Volume: | 461 |
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Number of pages: | 10 |
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First page: | 4115 |
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Last Page: | 4124 |
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Funding institution: | National Science Foundation [AST-1211929, AST-1411654]; NASA [NAS5-26555]; NASA Office of Space Science [NNX09AF08G]; University of Toledo; Helen Luedtke Brooks Endowed Professorship; CRAQ (Quebec) fellowship; Leibniz Graduate School for Quantitative Spectroscopy in Astrophysics; Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP); institute of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Potsdam; NSERC (Canada); FQRNT (Quebec) |
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Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Physik und Astronomie |
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Peer review: | Referiert |
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