Read more
Spectroscopic study of classical Be (Be) stars is important to better understand their disc physics. Recently, Banerjee et al. (2021) produced an atlas of all major emission lines found in a large sample of over 100 field Be stars using the 2-m Himalayan Chandra Telescope facility of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) located at Ladakh, India. This study revealed several important aspects of Be star discs, such as the importance of considering the extinction parameter (AV) for studying Be star properties, their discs are generally optically thick in nature, probable existence of non-isothermal discs in some such stars which might be responsible for the production of Ca II triplet emission lines, etc. In another separate study (Banerjee et al. 2022), we focused in understanding the disc transient nature of Be stars through continuous monitoring of their H line profile variations for 5 consecutive years using the 1-m telescope facility at the Vainu Bappu Observatory, Kavalur, India operated by IIA. Our work thus opens a broad scope to perform further dedicated studies of Be stars using larger samples to better understand their disc properties.
About the author
I am an observational astronomer working on better understanding the disc physics of exotic classical Be stars using spectroscopy & photometry. Having pursued PhD and MPhil in this area and MTech in Astronomy and Space Engineering, I whole heartedly love to spend time in astronomy outreach activities, which I am doing since over past two decades.
