Estimation of the mass loss, opening angle and mass of Be circumstellar disks from Brγ continuum emission and interferometric measurements

Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, Département FRESNEL, CNRS UMR 6528, Site de Grasse-Roquevignon, Avenue Copernic, 06130 Grasse, France

Corresponding author: Philippe.Stee@obs-azur.fr

Received: 2 December 2002
Accepted: 13 March 2003

Abstract

Using the SIMECA code developed by Stee & Araùjo (1994); Stee et al. (1995) for Be stars we obtain a correlation between the mass loss rates and the Brγ continuum luminosity as a function of the opening angle of the disk. We show that this correlation is similar to those obtained by Scuderi et al. (1998) for O-B supergiants. We found that the wind density at the base of the photosphere, from a sample of 8 Be stars, lies between 10^-13 and 10^-12 g cm^-3. We also present a relationship between the mass of the circumstellar disk and the 2.16 μm flux. Finally we emphasize how interferometric measurements can help to estimate the wind density and we present a sample of 16 Be stars with predicted visibilities that can be observed with the VLTI.