Fundamental parameters of Be stars located in the seismology fields of COROT

¹ Royal Observatory of Belgium, 3 avenue circulaire, 1180 Brussels, Belgium e-mail: yves.fremat@oma.be
² Institute for astronomy, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200B, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
³ GEPI/UMR 8111 du CNRS, Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, 5 place Jules Janssen, 92195 Meudon, France
⁴ Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095 CNRS, Université Pierre & Marie Curie, 75014 Paris, France
⁵ Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas, Universidade de São Paulo, Rua do Matão 1226, 05508-090 São Paulo, Brazil
⁶ Departamento de Fisica, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, 59072-970 Natal, Brazil

Received: 25 April 2005
Accepted: 21 October 2005

Abstract

In preparation for the COROT space mission, we determined the fundamental parameters (spectral type, temperature, gravity, ) of the Be stars observable by COROT in its seismology fields (64 Be stars). We applied a careful and detailed modeling of the stellar spectra, taking into account the veiling caused by the envelope, as well as the gravitational darkening and stellar flattening due to rapid rotation. Evolutionary tracks for fast rotators were used to derive stellar masses and ages. The derived parameters will be used to select Be stars as secondary targets (i.e. observed for 5 consecutive months) and short-run targets of the COROT mission. Furthermore, we note that the main part of our stellar sample falls in the second half of the main sequence life time, and that in most cases the luminosity class of Be stars is inaccurate in characterizing their evolutionary status.