The Luminous Eclipsing SMC OB + WN Binary HD 5980 before and during the Recent LBV‐like Outburst: An Extreme Case of Colliding Winds

The 1994 LBV-(luminous blue variable)like outburst of one of the luminous, hot components of the binary HD 5980 made it the brightest star in the Small Magellanic Cloud for an interval of 5 months. The most intriguing question to arise from this event is the following : Why did the HD 5980 spectrum change from an H-poor WN3 with veiled OB absorption lines about 20 yr ago to an H-rich WN11 without central absorption lines during the outburst ? In an attempt to answer this apparent enigma, we present and analyze new phase-dependent spectroscopic, polarimetric, and light-curve observations. Together with other published data, these new observations allow us to improve the orbital parameters considerably, except for the radial velocity amplitudes and hence the masses, which are only roughly constrained.