Abstract
All late-type galactic Wolf-Rayet stars, i.e. the WC8–10 and WC9-10 types, were observed by infrared photometry over a period of five years. Circumstellar dust emission, at temperatures of the order of 1300 K, was observed from 5 of the 10 WC8 stars, 14 of the 17 WC9 stars, the only WC10 star, the only object classified as WN10, and the related object LSS4005. In all cases, the dust is being continually replenished within the stellar winds. Models of the dust shells, assuming spherical geometry and inverse square law dust density distributions, are presented. Although the problem of dust formation in a 10,000 K plasma is still an enigma, it appears likely that shock-induced density enhancements where n ≥ 6*105 cm-3 could trigger the dust formation. The dust formation rate of WC9 stars is of the order of 2*10-7 M⊙/yr per star. In addition, two WC7+a and one WC8 stars are found to produce dust episodically. Of one of the former it is shown that dust is amorphous carbon.
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© 1988 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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van der Hucht, K.A., Williams, P.M., Thé, P.S. (1988). Dust Formation and Mass Loss by Wolf-Rayet Stars. In: Bianchi, L., Gilmozzi, R. (eds) Mass Outflows from Stars and Galactic Nuclei. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 142. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2941-8_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2941-8_16
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