12 New Galactic Wolf-Rayet Stars Identified via 2MASS+Spitzer/GLIMPSE
Jon C. Mauerhan, Schuyler D. Van Dyk, Pat W. Morris

TL;DR
This study identifies 12 new obscured Wolf-Rayet stars in the Milky Way using infrared color excesses from 2MASS and Spitzer/GLIMPSE data, expanding the catalog of known stars of this type.
Contribution
It introduces a new infrared color-based method for discovering Wolf-Rayet stars and confirms 12 new stars, including a potential dust-producing binary, enhancing understanding of their distribution.
Findings
Confirmed 12 new Wolf-Rayet stars in the Galaxy.
Discovered a possible dust-producing WC9d+OBI binary.
Most stars are likely runaways or formed in isolation.
Abstract
We report new results from our effort to identify obscured Wolf-Rayet stars in the Galaxy. Candidates were selected by their near-infrared (2MASS) and mid-infrared (Spitzer/GLIMPSE) color excesses, which are consistent with free-free emission from ionized stellar winds and thermal excess from hot dust. We have confirmed 12 new Wolf-Rayet stars in the Galactic disk, including 9 of the nitrogen subtype (WN), and 3 of the carbon subtype (WC); this raises the total number of Wolf-Rayet stars discovered with our approach to 27. We classify one of the new stars as a possible dust-producing WC9d+OBI colliding-wind binary, as evidenced by an infrared excess resembling that of known WC9d stars, the detection of OBI features superimposed on the WC9 spectrum, and hard X-ray emission detected by XMM-Newton. A WC8 star in our sample appears to be a member of the stellar cluster Danks 1, in contrast…
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Taxonomy
TopicsStellar, planetary, and galactic studies · Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies · Astronomy and Astrophysical Research
