Issue |
A&A
Volume 690, October 2024
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A78 | |
Number of page(s) | 9 | |
Section | Stellar atmospheres | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202451161 | |
Published online | 27 September 2024 |
Insight into the occurrence of particle acceleration through the investigation of Wolf–Rayet stars using uGMRT observations
1
Space Sciences, Technologies and Astrophysics Research (STAR) Institute, University of Liège,
Quartier Agora, 19c, Allée du 6 Août, B5c,
4000
Sart Tilman,
Belgium
2
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology,
Thiruvananthapuram
695 547,
Kerala,
India
3
Instituto Argentino de Radioastronomia (CONICET; CICPBA; UNLP),
C.C. No. 5,
1894
Villa Elisa,
Argentina
★ Corresponding author; ablanco@uliege.be
Received:
18
June
2024
Accepted:
19
July
2024
Context. Massive stars produce strong stellar winds that consist of continuous outflows of material at speeds of thousands of km s−1. These winds convey large amounts of kinetic power, especially in the case of Wolf–Rayet (WR) stars. When these winds interact with nearby material, they will likely produce shocks. Among other processes, particle acceleration is expected to occur. This is particularly well established in the case of massive binary systems, where the stellar winds collide, allowing these systems to be identified thanks to the detection of synchrotron radio emission, produced by a population of relativistic particles accelerated in the shocks.
Aims. Our goal is to investigate the occurrence of particle acceleration among massive stars in their pre-supernova evolution phases.
Methods. We observed a subset of five WR stars in the radio domain using the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT), located in India. The observations were carried out in bands 4 (550–950 MHz) and 5 (1050–1450 MHz) for all the targets.
Results. We detected radio emission for only WR 110 in bands 4 and 5. Its thermal spectrum displays a consistent index of +0.74 down to uGMRT bands. The four other targets were not detected and we derived 3σ upper limits on their flux density. Our upper limits in Band 4 are the first provided for these targets below 1 GHz. None of the targets was identified as a synchrotron radio emitter in these radio bands.
Conclusions. If some synchrotron emission is produced in these systems, the non-detection with the uGMRT can be most likely attributed to strong free-free absorption (FFA). This is especially relevant for WR98a which is catalogued as a particle accelerator based on previous measurements at higher radio frequencies. The prominence of FFA constitutes a severe obstacle to identifying particle accelerators in the radio domain.
Key words: acceleration of particles / radiation mechanisms: non-thermal / stars: Wolf-Rayet / radio continuum: stars
© The Authors 2024
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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