He II lambda4686 in Eta Carinae: Collapse of the Wind-Wind Collision Region during Periastron Passage
- Teodoro, M.
- Damineli, A.
- Arias, J. I.
- de Araújo, F. X.
- Barba, Rodolfo Hector
- Corcoran, Michael
- Borges Fernandes, M.
- Fernandez Lajus, Eduardo Eusebio
- Fraga, L.
- Gamen, Roberto Claudio
- Gonzalez, Jorge Federico
- Groh, J. H.
- Marshall, J. L.
- McGregor, P. J.
- Morrell, N.
- Nicholls, D. C.
- Parkin, E. R.
- Pereira, C. B.
- Phillips, M. M.
- Solivella, Gladys Rebeca
- Steiner, J. E.
- Stritzinger, M.
- Thompson, I.
- Torres, C. A. O.
- Torres, M. A. P.
- Zevallos Herencia, M. I.
DOIAbstract
The periodic spectroscopic events in η Carinae are now well established and occur near the periastron passage of two massive stars in a very eccentric orbit. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the variations of different spectral features, such as an eclipse by the wind-wind collision (WWC) boundary, a shell ejection from the primary star or accretion of its wind onto the secondary. All of them have problems explaining all the observed phenomena. To better understand the nature of the cyclic events, we performed a dense monitoring of η Carinae with five Southern telescopes during the 2009 low-excitation event, resulting in a set of data of unprecedented quality and sampling. The intrinsic luminosity of the He II λ4686 emission...
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