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Article Dans Une Revue Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Année : 2017

A close encounter of the massive kind

J. Maíz Apellániz
  • Fonction : Auteur
H. Sana
  • Fonction : Auteur
R. H. Barbá
  • Fonction : Auteur
R. C. Gamen
  • Fonction : Auteur

Résumé

We have used (I) Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys imaging and Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph spectroscopy, (II) ground-based Precision Integrated-Optics Near-infrared Imaging ExpeRiment/Very Large Telescope long-baseline interferometry, and (III) ground-based spectroscopy from different instruments to study the orbit of the extreme multiple system HD 93 129 Aa,Ab, which is composed of (at least) two very massive stars in a long-period orbit with e > 0.92, which will pass through periastron in 2017/2018. In several ways, the system is an η Car precursor. Around the time of periastron passage, the two very strong winds will collide and generate an outburst of non-thermal hard X-ray emission without precedent in an O+O binary since astronomers have been able to observe above Earth's atmosphere. A coordinated multiwavelength monitoring in the next two years will enable a breakthrough understanding of the wind interactions in such extreme close encounters. Furthermore, we have found evidence that HD 93 129 Aa may be a binary system itself. In that case, we could witness a three-body interaction which may yield a runaway star or a stellar collision close to or shortly after the periastron passage. Either of those outcomes would be unprecedented, as they are predicted to be low-frequency events in the Milky Way.
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insu-03692538 , version 1 (10-06-2022)

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J. Maíz Apellániz, H. Sana, R. H. Barbá, J. -B. Le Bouquin, R. C. Gamen. A close encounter of the massive kind. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2017, 464, pp.3561-3567. ⟨10.1093/mnras/stw2618⟩. ⟨insu-03692538⟩
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