Non-spherical evolution of the line-driven wind instability

Abstract

In this paper, we study the structure and stability of line-driven winds using numerical hydrodynamic simulations. We calculate the radiation force from an explicit non-local solution of the radiation transfer equation, rather than a Sobolev approximation, without restricting the flow to one-dimensional symmetry. We find that the solutions that result have complex and highly variable structures, including dense condensations, which we compare with observed variable absorption features in the spectra of early-type stars.