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Register a new userOn the bipolarity of Wolf-Rayet nebulae
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Wolf-Rayet stars are amongst the rarest but also most intriguing massive stars. Their extreme stellar winds induce famous multi-wavelength circumstellar gas nebulae of various morphologies, spanning from circles and rings to bipolar shapes. This study is devoted to the investigation of the formation of young, asymmetric Wolf-Rayet gas nebulae and we present a 2.5-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamical toy model for the simulation of Wolf-Rayet gas nebulae generated by wind-wind interaction. Our method accounts for stellar wind asymmetries, rotation, magnetisation, evolution and mixing of materials. It is found that the morphology of the Wolf-Rayet nebulae of blue supergiant ancestors is tightly related to the wind geometry and to the stellar phase transition time interval, generating either a broadened peanut-like or a collimated jet-like gas nebula. Radiative transfer calculations of our Wolf-Rayet nebulae for dust infrared emission at 24 $mu$m show that the projected diffuse emission can appear as oblate, bipolar, ellipsoidal or ring structures. Important projection effects are at work in shaping observed Wolf-Rayet nebulae. This might call a revision of the various classifications of Wolf-Rayet shells, which are mostly based on their observed shape. Particularly, our models question the possibility of producing pre-Wolf-Rayet wind asymmetries, responsible for bipolar nebulae like NGC 6888, within the single red supergiant evolution channel scenario. We propose that bipolar Wolf-Rayet nebulae can only be formed within the red supergiant scenario by multiple/merged massive stellar systems, or by single high-mass stars undergoing additional, e.g. blue supergiant, evolutionary stages prior to the Wolf-Rayet phase.
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Wolf-Rayet stars are advanced evolutionary stages of massive stars. Despite their large mass-loss rates and high wind velocities, none of them display a bow shock, although a fraction of them are classified as runaway. Our 2.5-D numerical simulations of circumstellar matter around a 60Mo runaway star show that the fast Wolf-Rayet stellar wind is released into a wind-blown cavity filled with various shocks and discontinuities generated throughout the precedent evolutionary phases. The resulting fast-wind slow-wind interaction leads to the formation of spherical shells of swept-up dusty material similar to those observed in near infrared 24 micron with Spitzer, and which appear to be co-moving with the runaway massive stars, regardless of their proper motion and/or the properties of the local ambient medium. We interpret bright infrared rings around runaway Wolf-Rayet stars in the Galactic plane, like WR138a, as indication of their very high initial masses and a complex evolutionary history. Stellar-wind bow shocks become faint as stars run in diluted media, therefore, our results explain the absence of detected bow shocks around Galactic Wolf-Rayet stars such as the high-latitude, very fast-moving objects WR71, WR124 and WR148. Our results show that the absence of a bow shock is consistent with a runaway nature of some Wolf-Rayet stars. This questions the in-situ star formation scenario of high-latitude Wolf-Rayet stars in favor of dynamical ejection from birth sites in the Galactic plane.
The majority of planetary nebulae (PNe) show axisymmetric morphologies, whose causes are not well understood. In this work, we present spatially resolved kinematic observations of 14 Galactic PNe surrounding Wolf-Rayet ([WR]) and weak emission-line stars ($wels$) based on the H$alpha$ and [N II] emission taken with the Wide Field Spectrograph on the ANU 2.3-m telescope. Velocity-resolved channel maps and position--velocity diagrams, together with archival Hubble Space Telescope ($HST$) and ground-based images, are employed to construct three-dimensional morpho-kinematic models of 12 objects using the program SHAPE. Our results indicate that these 12 PNe have elliptical morphologies with either open or closed outer ends. Kinematic maps also illustrate on-sky orientations of elliptically symmetric morphologies of the interior shells in NGC 6578 and NGC 6629, and the compact ($leq 6$ arcsec) PNe Pe1-1, M3-15, M1-25, Hen2-142, and NGC 6567, in agreement with the high-resolution $HST$ images containing morphological details. Point-symmetric knots in Hb4 exhibit deceleration with distance from the nebular center that could be due to shock collisions with the ambient medium. Velocity dispersion maps of Pe1-1 disclose point-symmetric knots similar to those in Hb4. Collimated outflows are also visible in the position--velocity diagrams of M3-30, M1-32, M3-15, and K2-16, which are reconstructed by tenuous prolate ellipsoids extending upwardly from thick toroidal shells in our models.
Wolf-Rayet ([WR]) and weak emission-line ($wels$) central stars of planetary nebulae (PNe) have hydrogen-deficient atmospheres, whose origins are not well understood. In the present study, we have conducted plasma diagnostics and abundance analyses of 18 Galactic PNe surrounding [WR] and $wels$ nuclei, using collisionally excited lines (CELs) and optical recombination lines (ORLs) measured with the Wide Field Spectrograph on the ANU 2.3-m telescope at the Siding Spring Observatory complemented with optical archival data. Our plasma diagnostics imply that the electron densities and temperatures derived from CELs are correlated with the intrinsic nebular H$beta$ surface brightness and excitation class, respectively. Self-consistent plasma diagnostics of heavy element ORLs of N${}^{2+}$ and O${}^{2+}$ suggest that a small fraction of cool ($lesssim 7000$ K), dense ($sim 10^4-10^5$ cm$^{-3}$) materials may be present in some objects, though with large uncertainties. Our abundance analyses indicate that the abundance discrepancy factors (ADF$equiv$ORLs/CELs) of O${}^{2+}$ are correlated with the dichotomies between forbidden-line and He I temperatures. Our results likely point to the presence of a tiny fraction of cool, oxygen-rich dense clumps within the diffuse warm ionized nebulae. Moreover, our elemental abundances derived from CELs are mostly consistent with AGB models in the range of initial masses from 1.5 to 5M$_{odot}$. Further studies are necessary to understand better the origins of abundance discrepancies in PNe around [WR] and $wels$ stars.
Nearly 50 post-common-envelope (post-CE) close binary central stars of planetary nebulae (CSPNe) are now known. Most contain either main sequence or white dwarf (WD) companions that orbit the WD primary in around 0.1-1.0 days. Only PN~G222.8-04.2 and NGC~5189 have post-CE CSPNe with a Wolf-Rayet star primary (denoted [WR]), the low-mass analogues of massive Wolf-Rayet stars. It is not well understood how H-deficient [WR] CSPNe form, even though they are relatively common, appearing in over 100 PNe. The discovery and characterisation of post-CE [WR] CSPNe is essential to determine whether proposed binary formation scenarios are feasible to explain this enigmatic class of stars. The existence of post-CE [WR] binaries alone suggests binary mergers are not necessarily a pathway to form [WR] stars. Here we give an overview of the initial results of a radial velocity monitoring programme of [WR] CSPNe to search for new binaries. We discuss the motivation for the survey and the associated strong selection effects. The mass functions determined for PN~G222.8-04.2 and NGC~5189, together with literature photometric variability data of other [WR] CSPNe, suggest that of the post-CE [WR] CSPNe yet to be found, most will have WD or subdwarf O/B-type companions in wider orbits than typical post-CE CSPNe (several days or months c.f. less than a day).
The Wolf-Rayet (WR) nebula NGC3199 has been suggested to be a bow shock around its central star WR18, presumably a runaway star, because optical images of the nebula show a dominating arc of emission south-west of the star. We present the XMM-Newton detection of extended X-ray emission from NGC3199, unveiling the powerful effect of the fast wind from WR18. The X-ray emission is brighter in the region south-east of the star and analysis of the spectral properties of the X-ray emission reveals abundance variations: i) regions close to the optical arc present nitrogen-rich gas enhanced by the stellar wind from WR18 and ii) gas at the eastern region exhibits abundances close to those reported for nebular abundances derived from optical studies, signature of an efficient mixing of the nebular material with the stellar wind. The dominant plasma temperature and electron density are estimated to be $Tapprox1.2times$10$^{6}$ K and $n_mathrm{e}$=0.3 cm$^{-3}$ with an X-ray luminosity in the 0.3-3.0 keV energy range of $L_mathrm{X}$=2.6$times$10$^{34}$ erg s$^{-1}$. Combined with information derived from Herschel and the recent Gaia first data release, we conclude that WR18 is not a runaway star and the formation, chemical variations, and shape of NGC3199 depend on the initial configuration of the interstellar medium.
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