|
Description
Massive stars, although being important building blocks of galaxies, are still not fully understood. This especially holds true for Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars with their strong mass loss, whose spectral analysis requires adequate model atmospheres. Following our comprehensive studies of the WR stars in the Milky Way, we now present spectroscopic analyses of almost all known WN stars in the LMC. For the quantitative analysis of the wind-dominated emission-line spectra, we employ the Potsdam Wolf-Rayet (PoWR) model atmosphere code. By fitting synthetic spectra to the observed spectral energy distribution and the available spectra (ultraviolet and optical), we obtain the physical properties of 107 stars. We present the fundamental stellar and wind parameters for an almost complete sample of WN stars in the LMC. Among those stars that are putatively single, two different groups can be clearly distinguished. While 12% of our sample are more luminous than 10^6^L_{sun}_ and contain a significant amount of hydrogen, 88% of the WN stars, with little or no hydrogen, populate the luminosity range between log(L/L_{sun}_)=5.3...5.8.
|
