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Westerlund 1 is a Galactic Treasure Chest: The Wolf-Rayet Stars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

C. K. Rosslowe  and
P. A. Crowther
C. K. Rosslowe
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield email: chris.rosslowe@shef.ac.uk
P. A. Crowther
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield email: chris.rosslowe@shef.ac.uk
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Abstract

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The Westerlund 1 Galactic cluster hosts an eclectic mix of coeval massive stars. At a modest distance of 4–5 kpc, it offers a unique opportunity to study the resolved stellar content of a young (~5 Myr) high mass (5·104M⊙) star cluster. With the aim of testing single-star evolutionary predictions, and revealing any signatures of binary evolution, we discuss on-going analyses of NTT/SOFI near-IR spectroscopy of Wolf-Rayet stars in Westerlund 1. We find that late WN stars are H-poor compared to their counterparts in the Milky Way field, and nearly all are less luminous than predicted by single-star Geneva isochrones at the age of Westerlund 1.

Keywords

stars: early-typemass lossWolf-Rayet - infrared: stars - galaxies: star clusters
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 9 , Issue S307: New windows on massive stars: asteroseismology, interferometry, and spectropolarimetry , June 2014 , pp. 135 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2015 

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