No Arabic abstract
We show that Be stars belong to a high velocity tail of a single B-type star rotational velocity distribution in the MS. This implies that: 1) the number fraction N(Be)/N(Be+B) is independent of the mass; 2) Bn stars having ZAMS rotational velocities higher than a given limit might become Be stars.
A significant number of Be stars show a second Balmer discontinuity (sBD) attributed to an extended circumstellar envelope (CE). The fast rotational velocity of Be stars undoubtedly plays a significant role in the formation of the CE. However, Bn stars, which are also B-type rapidly rotating stars, do not all present clear evidence of being surrounded by circumstellar material. We aim to characterize the populations of Be and Bn stars, and discuss the appearance of the sBD as a function of the stellar parameters. We expect to find new indices characterizing the properties of CEs in Be stars and properties relating Be and Bn stars. Correlations of the aspect and intensity of the sBD and the emission in the H$alpha$ line with the stellar parameters and the $V!sin i$ are presented. Some Bn stars exhibit the sBD in absorption, which may indicate the presence of rather dense CEs. Six Bn stars show emission in the H$alpha$ line, so they are reclassified as Be stars. The sBD in emission appears in Be stars with $V!sin i lesssim 250$ km,s$^{-1}$, and in absorption in both Be and Bn stars with mbox{$V!sin i gtrsim 50$ km,s$^{-1}$}. Low-mass Be and Bn stars share the same region in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. The distributions of rotational to critical velocity ratios of Be and Bn stars corresponding to the current stellar evolutionary stage are similar, while distributions inferred for the zero-age main sequence have different skewness. We found emission in the H$alpha$ line and signs of a CE in some Bn stars, which motivated us to think that Bn and Be stars probably belong to the same population. It should be noted that some of the most massive Bn stars could display the Be phenomenon at any time. The similarities found among Be and Bn stars deserve to be more deeply pursued.
Young stars on their way to the ZAMS evolve in significantly different ways depending on mass. While the theoretical and observational properties of low- and intermediate-mass stars are rather well understood and/or empirically tested, the situation for massive stars (>10-15 Msun) is, to say the least, still elusive. On theoretical grounds, the PMS evolution of these objects should be extremely short, or nonexistent at all. Observationally, despite a great deal of effort, the simple (or bold) predictions of simplified models of massive star formation/evolution have proved more difficult to be checked. After a brief review of the theoretical expectations, I will highlight some critical test on young stars of various masses.
We continue our studies on stellar latitudinal differential rotation. The presented work is a sequel of the work of Reiners et al. who studied the spectral line broadening profile of hundreds of stars of spectral types A through G at high rotational speed (vsini > 12 km/s). While most stars were found to be rigid rotators, only a few tens show the signatures of differential rotation. The present work comprises the rotational study of some 180 additional stars. The overall broadening profile is derived according to Reiners et al. from hundreds of spectral lines by least-squares deconvolution, reducing spectral noise to a minimum. Projected rotational velocities vsini are measured for about 120 of the sample stars. Differential rotation produces a cuspy line shape which is best measured in inverse wavelength space by the first two zeros of its Fourier transform. Rigid and differential rotation can be distinguished for more than 50 rapid rotators (vsini > 12 km/s) among the sample stars from the available spectra. Ten stars with significant differential rotation rates of 10-54 % are identified, which add to the few known rapid differential rotators. Differential rotation measurements of 6 % and less for four of our targets are probably spurious and below the detection limit. Including these objects, the line shapes of more than 40 stars are consistent with rigid rotation.
A large number of massive stars are known to rotate, resulting in significant distortion and variation in surface temperature from the pole to the equator. Radiatively driven mass loss is temperature dependent, so rapid rotation produces variation in mass loss and angular momentum loss rates across the surface of the star, which is expected to affect the evolution of rapidly rotating massive stars. In this work, we investigate the two dimensional effects of rotation on radiatively driven mass loss and the associated loss of angular momentum in ZAMS models with solar metallicity. Using 2D stellar models, which give the variation in surface parameters as a function of co-latitude, we implement two different mass loss prescriptions describing radiatively driven mass loss. We find a significant variation in mass loss rates and angular momentum loss as a function of co-latitude. We find that the mass loss rate decreases as the rotation rate increases for models at constant initial mass, and derive scaling relations based on these models. When comparing 2D to 1D mass loss rates, we find that although the total angle integrated mass loss does not differ significantly, the 2D models predict less mass loss from the equator and more mass loss from the pole than the 1D predictions using von Zeipels law. As a result, rotating models lose less angular momentum in 2D than in 1D, which will change the subsequent evolution of the star. The evolution of these models will be investigated in future work.
We explore scenarios for the dynamical ejection of stars BN and x from source I in the Kleinmann-Low nebula of the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC), which is important for being the closest region of massive star formation. This ejection would cause source I to become a close binary or a merger product of two stars. We thus consider binary-binary encounters as the mechanism to produce this event. By running a large suite of $N$-body simulations, we find that it is nearly impossible to match the observations when using the commonly adopted masses for the participants, especially a source I mass of $7:{rm{M}}_odot$. The only way to recreate the event is if source I is more massive, i.e., $sim20:{rm{M}}_odot$. However, even in this case, the likelihood of reproducing the observed system is low. We discuss the implications of these results for understanding this important star-forming region.