Wolf-Rayet star
(WR star, WR)
(type of star with broad emission bands)
A Wolf-Rayet star (WR star or just WR) is a kind of star that is
very hot, with strong, broad helium emission lines
(typical stars' prominent lines are all absorption).
The broadening is presumed due to Doppler broadening of
lines emitted from a high velocity stellar wind.
Their spectrum indicates they are extremely hot,
30,000-200,000 K, and they are very luminous, at 10,000 to millions
of times the Sun's bolometric luminosity,
though most of the luminosity
is in ultraviolet and X-rays.
Two general classes of stars show these characteristics:
some are presumed to be in a late evolutionary stage of very massive
stars (initially above 20 solar masses), but others are presumed to
have been Sun-like stars now in their planetary-nebula stage.
A few hundred Wolf-Rayet stars have been identified within the
Milky Way, the first having been noticed in 1867 in
the constellation Cygnus. Being so bright, individual
Wolf-Rayet stars have been identified in other galaxies,
e.g., throughout the Local Group.
Even if the stars aren't distinguished, the Wolf-Rayet
characteristic spectrum is sometimes evident in distant
galaxies, which are referred to as Wolf-Rayet galaxies.
The spectral class W (W-class and W-type) was for some
time commonly used for them, but the stars are now merely referred
to as Wolf-Rayet (WR), the type further classified into number of
WR-specific spectral classes:
- carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet (WC) carbon line(s).
- nitrogen-rich Wolf-Rayet (WN) nitrogen line(s).
- late-type nitrogen-rich Wolf-Rayet (WNL) hydrogen line(s).
- early-type nitrogen-rich Wolf-Rayet (WNE) no hydrogen line(s).
- oxygen-rich Wolf-Rayet (WO) oxygen line(s).
(star type)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Rayet_star
https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/W/Wolf-Rayet+Star
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~pberlind/atlas/htmls/wrstars.html
https://itu.physics.uiowa.edu/labs/advanced/spectra-wolf-rayet-stars
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Gray/Gray3.html
http://pacrowther.staff.shef.ac.uk/WRcat/
https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/wrcat.html
Referenced by pages:
emission-line object
emission-line star
long gamma-ray burst (LGRB)
rare designator prefixes
stellar designation
supernova progenitor
Wolf-Rayet galaxy
WR 104
WR 140
Index