Oxygen abundance of gamma Vel from [O III] 88um Herschel/PACS spectroscopy

Abstract

We present Herschel PACS spectroscopy of the [O III] 88.4um fine-structure line in the nearby WC8+O binary system gamma Vel to determine its oxygen abundance. The critical density of this line corresponds to several 10^5 R* such that it is spatially extended in PACS observations at the 336 pc distance to gamma Vel. Two approaches are used, the first involving a detailed stellar atmosphere analysis of gamma Vel using CMFGEN, extending to Ne ~ 10^0 cm^-3 in order to fully sample the line formation region of [O III] 88.4um. The second approach involves the analytical model introduced by Barlow et al. and revised by Dessart et al, additionally exploiting ISO LWS spectroscopy of [O III] 51.8um. We obtain higher luminosities for the WR and O components of gamma Vel with respect to De Marco et al, log L/L_sun = 5.31 and 5.56, respectively, due to the revised (higher) interferometric distance. We obtain an oxygen mass fraction of X_O = 1.0+/- 0.3% for an outer wind volume filling factor of f = 0.5+/-0.25, favouring either standard or slightly reduced Kunz et al. rates for the ^12C(alpha, gamma)^16O reaction from comparison with BPASS binary population synthesis models. We also revisit neon and sulphur abundances in the outer wind of gamma Vel from ISO SWS spectroscopy of [S IV] 10.5um [Ne II] 12.8um and [Ne III] 15.5um. The inferred neon abundance X_Ne = 2.0-0.6+0.4%, is in excellent agreement with BPASS predictions, while the.sulphur abundance of X_S = 0.04 +/- 0.01% agrees with the solar abundance, as expected for unprocessed elements.