Profile Disparity of Raman Scattered OVI in Symbiotic Stars

Hee-Won Lee

Sejong University, Korea

Raman scattered features of OVI resonance doublet 1032 and 1038 appearing at around 6825 Å and 7082 Å are a unique spectroscopic diagnostic tool to probe the mass transfer process in symbiotic stars, which are wide binary systems consisting of a hot compact star (usually a white dwarf) and a mass losing giant. The Raman OVI features often exhibit multiple peak structures and in many cases the blue peak of 7082 features is relatively more suppressed than that of 6825 features. We propose that the disparity of the two profiles is attributed local variation of optical depths of OVI, implying that the accretion flow is convergent in the red emission region and divergent in the blue emission region. We discuss the spectropolarimetric implications of this interpretation.

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