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E.S. Wood, R.K. Zimmerman, S.V. Marchenko (Western Kentucky University)
Wolf-Rayet (WRs) stars, the final evolutionary stages of massive stars, are placed among the most prodigious sources of hot, freshly formed dust in the Milky Way galaxy. We discuss the method allowing the detection of dust-generating WRs with the aid of the recently compiled 2MASS point source catalogue. Constructing the J-H vs. H-K color diagrams based on the reprocessed data from the catalogue, we have been able to clearly distinguish the dust-producing WRs from the rest of the galactic population. The probability of detection can reach 90-99%, depending on the characteristics of the stellar system. Applying this technique to the population of WR stars in the Magellanic Clouds, we find that the relative proportions of the dust-producing WR stars in the LMC and SMC are radically different from the corresponding statistics drawn from the galactic sample.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.