Remarkable spectral variability in WR 104 (WC9): dust condensation in a hostile environment?

Details Remarkable spectral variability in WR 104 (WC9): dust condensation in a hostile environment? Remarkable spectral variability in WR 104 (WC9): dust condensation in a hostile environment?

Sep 1997

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1997mnras.290l..59c&link_type=abstract

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 290, Issue 3, pp. L59-L63.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

29

Circumstellar Matter, Stars: Individual: Wr 104, Stars: Wolf-Rayet, Dust, Extinction

Scientific paper

We present new observations of the WC9 star WR 104 (Ve 2-45), collected in 1996 July at the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope, which reveal unprecedented spectral and photometric variations. Relative to previous observations by Torres & Massey, we find a simultaneous visual fading by ~1.1 mag, plus the disappearance of high-ionization spectral features (He ii, C iv) with low-ionization features (He i, C ii) relatively unchanged. We interpret this behaviour as obscuration of the inner Wolf-Rayet wind by a dust cloud condensation, analogous to R CrB stars, and recently proposed to explain occasional eclipses in other WC9 stars. Non-LTE model calculations for the WC9 component indicate a cloud diameter >~60 Rsolar (20R*) - far smaller than in R CrB stars - probably formed at a radius beyond 300 Rsolar (100R_*). We detect the definite presence of a companion OB star which may facilitate the necessary conditions for dust formation via shocks.

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