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We discuss the connection between wind overloading and discrete absorption components in P Cygni line profiles from O stars. Overloading can create horizontal plateaus in the radial wind speed that cause the extra absorption in the line profile. The upstream propagation speed of these velocity plateaus is analyzed. The second part of the paper deals with X-ray emission from O stars. X-ray line profiles observed with Chandra and XMM are often symmetric, contrary to what is expected for lines from a homogeneous wind. We discuss the influence on line symmetry of photon escape channels in a strongly clumped wind.
We discuss X-ray line formation in dense O star winds. A random distribution of wind shocks is assumed to emit X-rays that are partially absorbed by cooler wind gas. The cool gas resides in highly compressed fragments oriented perpendicular to the radial flow direction. For fully opaque fragments, we find that the blueshifted part of X-ray line profiles remains flat-topped even after severe wind attenuation, whereas the red part shows a steep decline. These box- type, blueshifted profiles resemble recent Chandra observations of the O3 star zeta Pup. For partially transparent fragments, the emission lines become similar to those from a homogeneous wind.