The variability of \gamma2 Vel and other massive stars with strong stellar winds, as seen with BRITE and ground-based spectroscopy

The variability of γ2 Vel and other massive stars with strong stellar winds, as seen with BRITE and ground-based spectroscopy

N. Richardson, A. Moffat, N. St-Louis, L. St-Jean, C. M. P. Russell, T. Shenar, G. M. Hill, K. Hamaguchi, H. Pablo, M. F. Corcoran, SASER spectroscopy group and the BRITE Team

Massive stars lose a large portion of their mass prior to their supernova explosions. This has long been studied through spectroscopic and photometric techniques, but very few programs have offered a glimpse of the short-term variations through continuous coverage. We have arranged ground-based time-series spectroscopy for a number of massive stars that have strong stellar winds. This is leading to an understanding of the short-term variations in evolved, massive stars with programs that have been mostly inaccessible in the past. We describe the initial results on γ2 Vel related to its colliding winds and orbit, and briefly outline future studies that we will have for both this system and other massive stars with large mass-loss rates.

Proceedings of the Polish Astronomical Society, vol. 5, 55-60 (2017)

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The variability of γ2 Vel and other massive stars with strong stellar winds, as seen with BRITE...