Adventures in X-ray Studies of Massive Stars


Richard Ignace


East Tennessee State University



X-ray studies of massive stars have provided important new information to help understand how this key class of stars form, live, and terminate. The X-ray band allows to probe processes that drive plasma to high temperatures of millions of Kelvin associated with shock phenomena, such as wind instabilities or magnetic confinement of wind flow. I review diagnostics used to confront observations in order to derive information about the properties and location of wind shocks based on time-averaged and time-variable data. I will discuss the modeling of X-ray emission lines and continuum. Applications to different examples are presented: magnetic B stars HR 7355 and HR 5907, B+B binaries AH Cep and CW Cep, the O star zeta Pup, and the Wolf-Rayet star WR6.

Date: Jeudi, le 18 avril 2019
Heure: 11:30
Lieu: Université de Montréal
  Pavillon Roger-Gaudry, Local D-460
Contact: Nicole St-Louis