The Non-thermal Emission from Colliding Winds Binaries

Summary

Colliding Winds Binaries are stellar systems containing two (usually massive) stars each with a powerful stellar wind. In systems with O stars or Wolf-Rayet stars, the winds collide at very high speeds (1000-3000 km/s). The shocked gas radiates at X-ray energies and the shocks bounding the wind-wind collision region may accelerate particles to near light speed. The details of the particle acceleration and the resulting non-thermal emission from these systems remains poorly understood. This project will involve constructing new numerical models of the particle acceleration and emission, to compare against the latest observational data. This project is ideally suited to a candidate interested in conducting a computational project and who enjoys the challenge of coding.

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