Colliding winds in massive binary systems to be diagnosed with X-IFU

Abstract: OB and Wolf-Rayet stars feature energetic stellar winds. In massive binary systems, the winds of both components collide. This leads to the formation of a hot X-ray emitting plasma. The properties of this plasma are best studied via Athena/X-IFU observations of the line profiles of the Fe xxv line complex at 6.7 keV. We have designed numerical tools to predict the morphology of those lines for a variety of configurations and to extract a maximum of information from the future observations.