Abstract
Most Wolf-Rayet stars (WR) of WC9 sub-type exhibit a dusty circumstellar envelope, but it is still a matter of debate how dust can form in their harsh environment. In a few cases, a pinwheel-like structure of the dusty envelope has been detected. Therefore, it has been suggested that dust formation in all dusty WR stars might be linked to colliding winds in a binary system. We probed the innermost region of the circumstellar dust shell of the deeply embedded WR star WR 118. We carried out spectro-interferometric observations using the AMBER instrument of ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer in low-spectral resolution mode (R = 35). The K-band observations were obtained with three 1.8 m telescopes spanning projected baselines between 9.2 and 40.1 m. At high spatial frequencies, the AMBER visibilities exhibit a prominent lobe, indicating that the envelope contains one or several zones with a large local intensity gradient. The strong closure phase signal clearly shows that the circumstellar envelope of WR 118 can only be described by an asymmetric intensity distribution. We show that a pinwheel nebula seen at low inclination is consistent with the AMBER data. Its size was determined to be 13.9+-1.1 mas. WR 118 possibly harbors a pinwheel nebula, which suggests a binary nature of the system. According to our best model, the period of the system would be ~60 days (for d=3 kpc), making WR 118 the shortest-period pinwheel nebula known so far.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.