Stellar Systems Group

Jaque Arancibia, M.; Barbá, R. H.; Morrell, N. I.
Boletín de la Asociación Argentina de Astronomía, vol.57, p.154-156
08/2015

ABSTRACT

The massive star cluster NGC 3603 is one of the privileged places in the Milky Way to conduct studies on the formation and evolution of massive stars. In this cluster, dozens of massive stars of type O and WN have been found, some of which may have initial masses of the order of 100-150 solar masses. The massive eclipsing binary MTT58 is located on the periphery of this conglomerate and has been classified as O2 If*/WN6. The system has the shortest orbital period (P=1.93552 days) for binary systems with of O2-3.5 If*/WN6 spectral types. Through the combined analysis of the light- and radial velocity curves we have determined absolute masses of 84 and 31 M for the components of the system. The physical dimension of the primary star indicates a smaller radius than expected for stars of such spectral type which can provide evidence about the youth of system.