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Discovery of the missing intermediate-mass helium stars stripped in binaries

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arxiv 2307.00061 v1 pith:RGKV7DUP submitted 2023-06-30 astro-ph.SR astro-ph.HE

M. R. Drout , Y. Götberg , B. A. Ludwig , J. H. Groh , S. E. de Mink , A. J. G. O'Grady , N. Smith This is my paper · ORCID
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keywords starsbinaryheliumbeenhighidentifiedinteractionlarge
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abstract

The theory of binary evolution predicts that many massive stars should lose their hydrogen-rich envelopes via interaction with a companion -- revealing hot helium stars with masses of $\sim$2--8M$_{\odot}$. However, only one candidate system had been identified, leaving a large discrepancy between theory and observation. Here, we present a new sample of stars -- identified via excess ultraviolet emission -- whose luminosities, colors, and spectral morphologies are consistent with predictions for the missing population. We detect radial velocity variations indicative of binary motion and measure high temperatures ($T_{\rm eff}\sim60-100$kK), high surface gravities ($\log(g)\sim5$) and depleted surface hydrogen mass fractions ($X_{\rm{H,surf}}\lesssim0.3$), which match expectations for stars with initial masses between 8--25 M$_{\odot}$ that have been stripped via binary interaction. These systems fill the helium star mass gap between subdwarfs and Wolf-Rayet stars, and are thought to be of large astrophysical significance as ionizing sources, progenitors of stripped-envelope supernovae and merging double neutron stars.

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Cited by 5 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. A Galactic intermediate-mass stripped star with a Wolf-Rayet-like wind

    astro-ph.SR 2026-08 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

    WR 2-1 is the first unambiguous intermediate-mass stripped star in the Milky Way: a 3-6 solar mass, 60 kK helium-rich companion in a 5.94-day binary with a rapidly rotating O-star.

  2. The Stellar Winds Atlas II: Black Hole Formation at Solar Metallicity

    astro-ph.SR 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Black hole masses at solar metallicity are set by whether a star becomes a Wolf-Rayet star before collapse, and cool supergiant winds control that split.

  3. The Stripped-Star Ultraviolet Magellanic Cloud Survey (SUMS): The UV Photometric Catalog and Stripped Star Candidate Selection

    astro-ph.SR 2025-05 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    The SUMS survey delivers UV photometry for 734,869 Magellanic Cloud sources and selects 820 candidate stripped star systems via UV excess.

  4. The IACOB project XVIII. Prevalence of short-period binaries among Galactic helium rich O-type stars

    astro-ph.SR 2026-08 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    In 45 O-type binaries, all seven helium-rich systems are short-period runaways, suggesting binary interaction is the main cause of helium enrichment.

  5. Insights from Modeling Magnetar-driven Light Curves of Stripped-envelope Supernovae

    astro-ph.HE 2024-12 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

    A unified magnetar spin-down model reproduces the bolometric light curves of 11 stripped-envelope supernovae, but several reported correlations follow from the fitting formulas rather than from independent physics.

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