Pulsation-Driven Winds from High Luminosity Stars

Institut für Astronomie, Türkenschanzstr. 17, 1180 Wien, Austria

Abstract

Based on 1-dimensional numerical simulations including the rotational acceleration in a quasi-spherical approximation we present pulsation-driven mass loss from luminous stars. In particular, for our model WN8 with M = 60 M_๏, L = 8×10⁵ L_๏ and T_eff = 25 000 K with a rotation rate of v sin i = 160 km s^-1 given at the stellar photosphere of R_p = 47.6 R_๏ and a stellar pulsation of P = 4.144 days we compute a time-dependent mass loss with an averaged rate of 1.28×10^-4 M_๏/yr. Further implications of such theoretical models are briefly discussed for observations of variable stars with large amplitudes.