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M. V. McSwain, D. R. Gies (Georgia State Univ.)
Be stars are a class of B stars with circumstellar disks that cause Balmer and other line emission. There are three possible reasons for the rapid rotation of Be stars: they may have been born as rapid rotators, spun up by binary mass transfer, or spun up during the main-sequence evolution of B stars. To test the various formation scenarios, we have conducted a photometric survey of 57 young open clusters to determine their fraction of Be stars relative to B stars as a function of cluster age. Low metallicity and/or high cluster density may also favor Be star formation, and we investigate these possibilities as well.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: mcswain@astro.yale.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.