Emission Lines in the Near-infrared Spectra of the Infrared Quintuplet Stars in the Galactic Center

Abstract

We report the detection of a number of emission lines in the 1.0--2.4~$\mu$m spectra of four of the five bright infrared dust-embedded stars at the center of the Galactic center's Quintuplet Cluster. Spectroscopy of the central stars of these objects is hampered not only by the large interstellar extinction that obscures all objects in the Galactic center, but also by the large amounts of warm circumstellar dust surrounding each of the five. The pinwheel morphologies of the dust observed previously around two of them are indicative of Wolf-Rayet colliding wind binaries; however, infrared spectra of each of the five have until now revealed only dust continua steeply rising to long wavelengths and absorption lines and bands from interstellar gas and dust. The emission lines detected, from ionized carbon and from helium, are broad and confirm that the objects are dusty late-type carbon Wolf-Rayet stars.

arXiv comment12 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (22)

• A new calibration of stellar parameters of Galactic O stars
• Massive Stars in the Quintuplet Cluster
• The Composition and Distribution of Dust Along the Line of Sight Towards the Galactic Center
• A dusty pinwheel nebula around the massive star WR 104
• Interstellar Extinction Law in the J, H, and Ks Bands toward the Galactic Center
• A census of the Wolf-Rayet content in Westerlund 1 from near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy
• The Galactic WC stars: Stellar parameters from spectral analyses indicate a new evolutionary sequence
• Hot and Diffuse Clouds near the Galactic Center Probed by Metastable H3+
• L-band spectroscopy of Galactic OB-stars
• Metallicity in the Galactic Center: The Quintuplet cluster
• Pinwheel nebula around WR 98a
• The prototype colliding-wind pinwheel WR 104
• Three-dimensional dust radiative-transfer models: The Pinwheel Nebula of WR104
• Infrared Diffuse Interstellar Bands in the Galactic Centre Region
• Mid-infrared imaging and spectroscopy of the enigmatic cocoon stars in the Quintuplet Cluster
• Pinwheels in the Quintuplet Cluster
• The Quintuplet Cluster I. A K-band spectral catalog of stellar sources
• The Quintuplet Cluster II. Analysis of the WN stars
• The Keck Aperture Masking Experiment: Near-Infrared Sizes of Dusty Wolf-Rayet Stars
• A Multiwavelength Study of Evolved Massive Stars in the Galactic Center
• A VLT/FLAMES survey for massive binaries in Westerlund 1. III. The WC9d binary W239 and implications for massive stellar evolution
• Infrared Observations of the Quintuplet Proper Members using SOFIA/FORCAST and Gemini/TReCS

Cited by in corpus (8)

• An updated stellar census of the Quintuplet cluster
• An equatorial outflow in the black hole optical dipper Swift J1357.2-0933
• Constraining the population of isolated massive stars within the Central Molecular Zone
• SOFIA/FORCAST Galactic Center Legacy Survey: Overview
• Background Infrared Sources for Studying the Galactic Center's Interstellar Gas
• A high resolution study of near-IR diffuse interstellar bands, search for small scale structure, time variability and stellar features
• Massive stars in the young cluster VVV CL074
• Radio observations of massive stars in the Galactic centre: The Quintuplet cluster