2001/01/29 by David McDavid · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Broadband #Circumstellar disk #Polarization (electrochemistry) #Radiative transfer #Scattering #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/320945
published as ApJ 553 (2001) 1027-1035 · 20 pages including 12 figures, LaTeX2e+AASTeX5.0, accepted by The Astrophysical Journal
arxiv created 2001/01/29 · openalex publication_date 2001/06/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
This paper describes a practical model for the polarization of Be stars that can be used to estimate roughly the physical parameters for optically thin circumstellar envelopes from broadband UBVRI photopolarimetry data. Analysis of long-term variability in terms of these parameters is a promising approach toward understanding the Be phenomenon. An interesting result from fitting the model to observations of eight Be stars is that all of them may have geometrically thin disks, with opening half-angles on the order of 10° or less. This contributes to the growing evidence that most Be disks are geometrically thin.