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We report precision ground-based broad-band optical intensity and linear-polarization light curves for the sky’s brightest WN8 star, WR 40. WN8 stars are notorious for their high level of variability, stemming from stochastic clumps in their strong winds that are slower and less hot than the winds of most other Wolf–Rayet (WR) stars. We confirm previous results that many WR stars display an amplitude of variability that is an order of magnitude higher in photometry than in polarimetry. For the first time, the unique nature of near simultaneity of our photometric and polarimetric observations of WR 40 allows us to check whether the two types of variability show correlated behaviour, of which we find none. Assuming simple temporal functions for the brightness and polarization of individual clumps, a model for simulated light curves is found to reproduce the properties of the observations, specifically the absence of correlation between photometric and polarimetric variations, the ratio of standard deviations for photometric and polarimetric variability, and the ratio of the average intrinsic polarization relative to its standard deviation. Mapping the solution for time variability to a spatial coordinate suggests that the wind clumps of WR 40 are free-free emitting in addition to light scattering.

 

ABSTRACT We present a hyperspectral cube of the Crab Nebula obtained with the imaging Fourier transform spectrometer SITELLE on the Canada–France–Hawaii telescope. We describe our techniques used to deconvolve the 310 000 individual spectra ($R = 9\, 600$) containing Hα, [N ii] λλ6548, 6583, and [S ii] λλ6716, 6731 emission lines and create a detailed 3D reconstruction of the supernova (SN) remnant (SNR) assuming uniform global expansion. We find that the general boundaries of the 3D volume occupied by the Crab are not strictly ellipsoidal as commonly assumed, and instead appear to follow a ‘heart-shaped’ distribution that is symmetrical about the plane of the pulsar wind torus. Conspicuous restrictions in the bulk distribution of gas consistent with constrained expansion coincide with positions of the dark bays and east–west band of He-rich filaments, which may be associated with interaction with a pre-existing circumstellar disc. The distribution of filaments follows an intricate honeycomb-like arrangement with straight and rounded boundaries at large and small scales that are anticorrelated with distance from the centre of expansion. The distribution is not unlike the large-scale rings observed in SNRs 3C 58 and Cassiopeia A, where it has been attributed to turbulent mixing processes that encouraged outwardly expanding plumes of radioactive 56Ni-rich ejecta. These characteristics reflect critical details of the original SN of 1054 CE and its progenitor star, and may favour a low-energy explosion of an iron-core progenitor. We demonstrate that our main findings are robust despite regions of non-homologous expansion driven by acceleration of material by the pulsar wind nebula.