The structure of line-driven winds

Astrophysics Group, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, UK e-mail: l.lucy@imperial.ac.uk

Received: 6 July 2007
Accepted: 11 September 2007

Abstract

Following procedures pioneered by Castor et al. (1975, ApJ, 195, 157, [CAK]), spherically-symmetric supersonic winds for O stars are computed for matching to plane-parallel moving reversing layers (RL's) from Paper I (Lucy 2007, A&A, 468, 649). In contrast to a CAK wind, each of these solutions is singularity-free, thus allowing its mass-loss rate to be fixed by the regularity condition at the sonic point within the RL. Moreover, information propagation in these winds by radiative-acoustic waves is everywhere outwardly-directed, justifying the implicit assumption in Paper I that transonic flows are unaffected by inwardly-directed wave motions.