Line Formation in Winds with Enhanced Equatorial Mass-Loss Rates and its Application to the Wolf-Rayet Star HD 50896

Ultraviolet spectra from the “Copernicus” satellite of the Wolf-Rayet star HD 50896 (Johnson, 1978; Cassinelli and Rumpl, 1982) show several P-Cygni profiles whose emission component has a larger equivalent width than the absorption component (see Figure 1). for lines with saturated absorption components, such as the N V (λλ1239–1243) line, the excess emission is due to thermal emission from the wind. However, for unsaturated lines which are due to scattering, such as the P V (λλ1118–1128) and O VI (λλ1032–1038) lines, the excess emission suggests that the scattering is not spherically symmetric.