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Gaia Proper Motion Velocities of Wolf-Rayet Stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Presentation #101.04 in the session Stellar Evolution and Stellar Populations.

Published onJun 19, 2024
Gaia Proper Motion Velocities of Wolf-Rayet Stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud

There are now understood to be several different possible evolutionary routes for massive stars to enter a Wolf-Rayet (WR) stage, including single versus binary evolution. Peculiar velocities offer essential insights on the origins of these objects, and can provide evidence of past binary interactions. We obtain the transverse proper motion velocities of WR stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud using Gaia DR3 data, measured relative to the local velocity fields. Our preliminary results show that WR kinematics are similar to those of field massive stars, which are known to be a population ejected from the parent clusters. We present the velocity distributions of WN, WC, WNh, WNE, WNL, OIf*/WN, and WN3/O3 subtypes, and compare them to each other and to other populations. The WC, OIf*/WN, and WN3/O3 subtypes appear to have higher median velocities than the other groups. We discuss the possible implications of our findings for the origins of the different subtypes.

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