Figure 2 - uploaded by Michael De Becker
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Snapshots of the gas density in the orbital (x − y) plane from the radiatively-driven winds simulation of WR 22 at φ = 1.0. At periastron (φ = 1.0) the WR star is to the left, and the O star is to the right, of the image centre. The plots show a region of ±1.2 × 10 14 cm (left panel) and ±3 × 10 13 cm (right panel).
Source publication
Massive stars possess powerful stellar winds. Wind-wind collision in a massive star binary system generates a region of thermalized plasma which may emit prolifically at X-ray wavelengths. Results are presented from 3D adaptive-mesh refinement (AMR) hydrodynamical models which include radiative cooling and the radiative driving of the stellar winds...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... orders of magnitude. However, when the acceleration of the winds is considered, the character of the WCR changes dramatically between apastron and periastron. As radiative cooling becomes effective in the post-shock O star's wind, the growth of powerful NTSIs massively disrupts the WCR. Shortly before periastron the WCR collapses onto the O star (Fig. 2), and the over-estimate of the observed X-ray flux by the model is reduced to a factor of ∼ 4, massively ...
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Context. Massive star winds are known to be responsible for X-ray emission arising from wind plasma heated by the strong shocks up to temperatures of 10 ⁶ –10 ⁷ K in the case of colliding wind binaries. The investigation of X-ray emission from massive stars thus constitutes a valuable tool for identifying binaries, which is otherwise a difficult ta...
