X-ray survey of Wolf-Rayet stars in the Magellanic Clouds

Details X-ray survey of Wolf-Rayet stars in the Magellanic Clouds X-ray survey of Wolf-Rayet stars in the Magellanic Clouds

Nov 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005mshe.work...13g&link_type=abstract

"Proceedings of "Massive Stars and High-Energy Emission in OB Associations", a workshop of the JENAM 2005, "Distant Worlds", hel

Computer Science

Scientific paper

Systematic X-ray surveys of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars in our Galaxy are hampered by the heavy obscuration in the Galactic plane, which prohibits the detections of WR stars, and by the uncertain distances to individual WR stars, which result in poorly determined luminosities. These problems are mitigated in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (MCs), because foreground and internal extinctions are small and distances are known. We have used archival Chandra ACIS and ROSAT PSPC and HRI observations of 128 WR stars in the MCs to search for X-ray emission from these stars. About 25 per cent of the WR stars in this sample are detected with X-ray luminosities in the range 2×1032-2×1035 ergs s-1. The X-ray spectral analysis of the brightest WR stars reveals large absorption columns and high temperatures, similar to those seen in sources with colliding winds. The colliding-wind origin of the X-ray emission is further supported by the higher frequency of X-ray detections among WR stars in binary systems and by their higher X-ray luminosities compared to those of single WR stars. Among single WR stars, X-ray emission is mostly detected in WN6 stars, while single WC stars are not detected.

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