A Radio Pinwheel Emanating from WR147

TL;DR

This paper reports the detection of a non-thermal radio pinwheel structure around WR147, a WN8 Wolf-Rayet star, suggesting a binary system with a 1.7-year period and providing insights into stellar wind interactions.

Contribution

First detection of a non-thermal radio pinwheel around a WN star, indicating a binary system with unique emission mechanisms and orbital parameters.

Findings

Detected non-thermal synchrotron emission in the pinwheel

Estimated binary period of 1.7 years

Suggests non-thermal emission may be common in WN star pinwheels

Abstract

Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are evolved massive stars, presumably on their way to becoming supernova. They are characterized by high luminosities and fast and dense stellar winds. We have detected signs of a radio continuum pinwheel associated with WR147, a nitrogen-rich WR star with spectral subtype WN8. These structures are known around a handful of late-type carbon-rich WR stars with massive companions were the dust formed at the zone where the two winds collide produces a plume of dense gas and dust that is carried out with the WR wind. As the binary system rotates, an Archimedean spiral detectable in the infrared is formed. The resulting pinwheel contains information on wind speeds, wind-momentum ratio and orbital parameters. However, WR147 is a WN star and the formation of dust is unlikely so a different emission mechanism must be at work. Our analysis of the data suggests that in this case the emission is dominantly of non-thermal nature (synchrotron), although we cannot exclude that some clumps could be brighter in free-free emission. It is possible that the pinwheels associated with WN stars will be detectable only as non-thermal emitters at radio wavelengths. From the characteristics of the pinwheel we estimate a period of 1.7 years for the binary system (the WN8 star and a companion yet undetected directly) responsible for the pinwheel.