<p>Systems like this are known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colliding-wind_binary" rel="nofollow noreferrer">colliding-wind binaries</a> (CWBs), and they do produce some interesting effects. When winds collide, they create shocks, which in turn heats up gas. The most notable result is x-ray emission, which tends to happen whenever you have non-negligible shock heating in stellar winds; there is certainly additional thermal and non-thermal (e.g. synchrotron) radiation at other parts of the spectrum. I don't know if this would lead to significant structure formation - bear in mind that hot stars with strong winds may also generate more prominent outflows and nebulae through unrelated mechanisms; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Carinae" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Eta Carinae</a> is a great example.</p>
<p>This actually poses a problem for people trying to study stellar winds in x-rays. We can derive a lot of information from spectroscopic observations of winds - composition, temperature distribution, mass-loss rates - for simple cases when x-ray emission arises from the line deshadowing instability (<a href="https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1988ApJ...335..914O/abstract" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Owocki, Castor &amp; Rybecki 1988</a>), leading to embedded wind shocks (EWS).</p>
<p>Magnetic fields complicate matters by forming shocks as plasma is forced to travel along field lines, and colliding-wind binaries make it <em>very</em> difficult to study the individual winds because much of the emission is now coming from the CWB shock front and <em>not</em> purely the EWS model. I don't really know how folks studying CWBs disentangle the effects - when I was working on stellar winds, we mostly just ignored all magnetic and O+O binary stars in the sample!</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-01-23T23:32:53.667Z
2021-01-23T23:32:53.667Z
HDE 226868
<p>Binary star systems are fairly common but I am unable to find any information on how the stars interact with one another on aspects other than gravitational affects.  Using Alpha Centauri as the candidate system, <strong>what possible effects could happen where their stellar winds reach one another?</strong></p>
<p>Would a cloud of magnetized gas form? Would there be a highly radioactive area between them? Could it form a sort of micro-nebula between the stars?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-01-25T08:37:57.160Z
Stellar winds carry angular momentum and thus have an effect on the orbital parameters and by that indirectly on the overall evolution of the system. If you are interested I can put effort in making an answer with some references to publications (some old ones, though. I’m out of business for some time now)
Hartmut Braun
<binary-star><interstellar-medium><solar-wind>
Interaction of stellar winds in binary star systems
Markitect
# Interaction of stellar winds in binary star systems

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-01-23)

Binary star systems are fairly common but I am unable to find any information on how the stars interact with one another on aspects other than gravitational affects. Using Alpha Centauri as the candidate system, **what possible effects could happen where their stellar winds reach one another?**

Would a cloud of magnetized gas form? Would there be a highly radioactive area between them? Could it form a sort of micro-nebula between the stars?

**Tags:** binary-star, interstellar-medium, solar-wind

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Stellar winds carry angular momentum and thus have an effect on the orbital parameters and by that indirectly on the overall evolution of the system. If you are interested I can put effort in making an answer with some references to publications (some old ones, though. I’m out of business for some time now)  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2021-01-23. Score: 3

Systems like this are known as [colliding-wind binaries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colliding-wind_binary) (CWBs), and they do produce some interesting effects. When winds collide, they create shocks, which in turn heats up gas. The most notable result is x-ray emission, which tends to happen whenever you have non-negligible shock heating in stellar winds; there is certainly additional thermal and non-thermal (e.g. synchrotron) radiation at other parts of the spectrum. I don't know if this would lead to significant structure formation - bear in mind that hot stars with strong winds may also generate more prominent outflows and nebulae through unrelated mechanisms; [Eta Carinae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Carinae) is a great example.

This actually poses a problem for people trying to study stellar winds in x-rays. We can derive a lot of information from spectroscopic observations of winds - composition, temperature distribution, mass-loss rates - for simple cases when x-ray emission arises from the line deshadowing instability ([Owocki, Castor & Rybecki 1988](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1988ApJ...335..914O/abstract)), leading to embedded wind shocks (EWS).

Magnetic fields complicate matters by forming shocks as plasma is forced to travel along field lines, and colliding-wind binaries make it *very* difficult to study the individual winds because much of the emission is now coming from the CWB shock front and *not* purely the EWS model. I don't really know how folks studying CWBs disentangle the effects - when I was working on stellar winds, we mostly just ignored all magnetic and O+O binary stars in the sample!


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