Constraining the Properties of the Eta Carinae System via 3-D SPH Models of Space-Based Observations: The Absolute Orientation of the Binary Orbit

Details Constraining the Properties of the Eta Carinae System via 3-D SPH Models of Space-Based Observations: The Absolute Orientation of the Binary Orbit Constraining the Properties of the Eta Carinae System via 3-D SPH Models of Space-Based Observations: The Absolute Orientation of the Binary Orbit

Jan 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011bsrsl..80..694m&link_type=abstract

Société Royale des Sciences de Liège, Bulletin, vol. 80, p. 694-698 (Proceedings of the 39th Liège Astrophysical Colloquium, hel

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

2

Scientific paper

The extremely massive (> 90 M_&sun;) and luminous ( = 5 × 10^{6} L_&sun;) star Eta Carinae, with its spectacular bipolar ``Homunculus'' nebula, comprises one of the most remarkable and intensely observed stellar systems in the Galaxy. However, many of its underlying physical parameters remain unknown. Multiwavelength variations observed to occur every 5.54 years are interpreted as being due to the collision of a massive wind from the primary star with the fast, less dense wind of a hot companion star in a highly elliptical (e ˜ 0.9) orbit. Using three-dimensional (3-D) Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations of the binary wind-wind collision, together with radiative transfer codes, we compute synthetic spectral images of [Fe III] emission line structures and compare them to existing Hubble Space Telescope/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (HST/STIS) observations. We are thus able, for the first time, to tightly constrain the absolute orientation of the binary orbit on the sky. An orbit with an inclination of i ˜ 40°, an argument of periapsis ω ˜ 255°, and a projected orbital axis with a position angle of ˜ 312° east of north provides the best fit to the observations, implying that the orbital axis is closely aligned in 3-D space with the Homunculus symmetry axis, and that the companion star orbits clockwise on the sky relative to the primary.

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