THE TEMPERATURE STRUCTURE OF Be STAR DISKS IN THE SMALL MAGELLANIC CLOUD

Journal Article · Tue Jan 10 04:00:00 EST 2012 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/744/2/191· OSTI ID:22004245

Ahmed, A; Sigut, T A. A., ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 3K7 (Canada)

The temperature structure of Be star circumstellar disks at the sub-solar metallicity appropriate to the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is investigated. It is found that for central stars of the same spectral type, Be star disks in the SMC are systematically hotter by several thousand degrees compared to Milky Way (MW) disks with the same density structure. For early spectral types (B0e-B3e), this results in systematically smaller H{alpha} equivalent widths for Be stars in the SMC. The implication of this result on Be star frequency comparisons between MW and SMC clusters is shown to be a 5%-10% lowering of the detection efficiency of Be stars in SMC clusters. These calculations are also compared to the known H{alpha} equivalent width distributions in the MW and SMC. For the MW, reasonable agreement is found; however, for the SMC, the match is not as good and systematically larger Be star disks may be required.

• OSTI ID: 22004245
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 744; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
EMISSION
MAGELLANIC CLOUDS
MATTER
MILKY WAY
STARS