Perfect Circles: A Study of the Scattering Regions of Wolf-Rayet Binary Stars

Abstract

This paper discusses two Wolf-Rayet binary stars, WR 42 and WR 79, that are nearly identical systems. I analyzed these binaries and their interaction regions using spectropolarimetry. I also performed a least-squares fit of a theoretical sinusoid to the polarization data of each star. This fit returns three primary orbital parameters – which I compared with the values obtained by previous studies done on these objects. Although our data matches previous estimates generally, there are some deviations worth noting that may indicate a more complex picture of those scattering regions than current models can account for.