Callingham, J.R., Tuthill, P.G., Pope, B.J.S. et al. (5 more authors) (2019) Anisotropic winds in a Wolf-Rayet binary identify a potential gamma-ray burst progenitor. Nature Astronomy, 3 (1). pp. 82-87. ISSN 2397-3366
Abstract
The massive evolved Wolf–Rayet stars sometimes occur in colliding-wind binary systems in which dust plumes are formed as a result of the collision of stellar winds1. These structures are known to encode the parameters of the binary orbit and winds2,3,4. Here we report observations of a previously undiscovered Wolf–Rayet system, 2XMM J160050.7–514245, with a spectroscopically determined wind speed of ~3,400 km s−1. In the thermal infrared, the system is adorned with a prominent ~12″ spiral dust plume, revealed by proper motion studies to be expanding at only ~570 km s−1. As the dust and gas appear to be coeval, these observations are inconsistent with existing models of the dynamics of such colliding-wind systems5,6,7. We propose that this contradiction can be resolved if the system is capable of launching extremely anisotropic winds. Near-critical stellar rotation is known to drive such winds8,9, suggesting that this Wolf–Rayet system may be a Galactic progenitor system for long-duration gamma-ray bursts.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 Springer Nature. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Nature Astronomy. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 19 Mar 2019 14:48 |
Last Modified: | 19 May 2019 00:41 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Research |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41550-018-0617-7 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:143767 |