Formation of broad Balmer wings in symbiotic stars

Seok-Jun Chang, Jeong-Eun Heo, Chae-Lin Hong & Hee-Won Lee

Sejong University, Korea

Symbiotic stars are binary systems composed of a hot white dwarf and a mass losing giant. These objects exhibit many prominent emission lines and also show Raman scattered O VI features at 6825 and 7088. Another characteristic is the presence of broad wings around Balmer lines. Broad wings can be formed through Thomson scattering by free electrons and Raman scattering of Lyman beta and higher series by neutral hydrogen. In this poster presentation we produce broad wings around H alpha and H beta adopting a Monte Carlo technique via these three mechanisms in order to make a quantitative comparison of these wings. Thomson wings are characterized by the exponential cut-off given by the thermal width whereas the Raman wings are dependent on the column density and continuum shape in the far UV region. A brief discussion is provided.

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