Discovery of a new wolf-rayet star and its ring nebula in Cygnus

Abstract

We report the serendipitous discovery of a ring nebula around a candidate Wolf-Rayet (WR) star, HBHA 4202-22, in Cygnus using the Spitzer Space Telescope archival data. Our spectroscopic follow-up observations confirmed the WR nature of this star (we named it WR 138a) and showed that it belongs to the WN8-9h subtype. We thereby add a new example to the known sample of late WN stars with circumstellar nebulae. We analysed the spectrum of WR 138a by using the Potsdam Wolf-Rayet (PoWR) model atmospheres, obtaining a stellar temperature of 40 kK. The stellar wind composition is dominated by helium with 20 per cent of hydrogen. The stellar spectrum is highly reddened and absorbed (EB- V = 2.4 mag, AV = 7.4 mag). Adopting a stellar luminosity of log L/L⊙ = 5.3, the star has a mass-loss rate of 10-4.7 M⊙ yr-1, and resides in a distance of 4.2 kpc. We measured the proper motion for WR 138a and found that it is a runaway star with a peculiar velocity of ≃50 km s-1. Implications of the runaway nature of WR 138a for constraining the mass of its progenitor star and understanding the origin of its ring nebula are discussed. © 2009 RAS.