The Wind-Wind Collision Region of the Wolf-Rayet Binary V444 Cygni: How Much Optical Line Emission Does It Produce?

Details The Wind-Wind Collision Region of the Wolf-Rayet Binary V444 Cygni: How Much Optical Line Emission Does It Produce? The Wind-Wind Collision Region of the Wolf-Rayet Binary V444 Cygni: How Much Optical Line Emission Does It Produce?

Dec 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001apj...563..341f&link_type=abstract

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 563, Issue 1, pp. 341-350.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

8

Stars: Binaries: Close, Stars: Individual (V444 Cygni), Stars: Winds, Outflows, Stars: Wolf-Rayet

Scientific paper

We model the emission-line profile variations that are expected to be produced by physical and wind eclipses in the Wolf-Rayet (W-R+O) binary system V444 Cyg. A comparison of the theoretical profiles with the He II 4686 Å line observed in V444 Cyg allows us to isolate the effects that are likely to be due to the wind-wind collision region in this particular line. We estimate that the wind-wind collision region contributes no more than ~12% of the equivalent width of the emission line, with smaller values during elongations, when part of the shock cone is being eclipsed by the O star. The upper limit implies a maximum contribution from the wind-wind collision region of ~1×1035 ergs s-1 to the total luminosity of He II 4686 Å line. Using the analytical solution of Cantó et al., we find that the bulk of this emission arises along the shock cone walls where the flow velocity is ~800 km s-1, at a distance of ~8 Rsolar from the O star's surface, and at θ=65°-75° from the line joining the centers of the two stars, with origin in the O star. The derived surface density of this region is σ=0.22 g cm-2, which, together with the He II 4686 Å luminosity, indicates that the thickness of the shock lies in the range 2-10×1010 cm and the total density is 1-6×1012 cm-3.

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