The VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey. XV. VFTS,822: a candidate Herbig B[e] star at low metallicity


V. M. Kalari (1,2), J. S. Vink (1), P. L. Dufton (2), C. J. Evans (3), P. R. Dunstall (2), H. Sana (4), J. S. Clark (5), L. Ellerbroek (6), A. de Koter (6,7), D. J. Lennon (8), W. D. Taylor (3)

(1) Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh, BT619DG, UK,
(2) Department of Physcis ,& Astronomy, Queen's University Belfast, BT71NN, UK ,
(3) UK Astronomy Technology Centre, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh, EH93HJ, UK ,
(4) ESA/STScI, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD21218, USA ,
(5) Department of Physics Astronomy, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK76AA, UK ,
(6) Astronomical Institute Anton Pannekoek, Amsterdam University, Science Park 904, 1098XH, Amsterdam, The Netherlands ,
(7) Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, 3001 Leuven, Belgium,
(8) European Space Astronomy Centre, Camino bajo del Castillo, Villanueva de la Canada, E-28692 Madrid, Spain

We report the discovery of the B[e] star VFTS 822 in the 30 Doradus star-forming region of the Large Magellanic Cloud, classified by optical spectroscopy from the VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey and complementary infrared photometry. VFTS 822 is a relatively low-luminosity (log 𝐿 = 4.04 ± 0.25 𝐿⊙) B8[e] star. In this Letter, we evaluate the evolutionary status of VFTS 822 and discuss its candidacy as a Herbig B[e] star. If the object is indeed in the pre-main sequence phase, it would present an exciting opportunity to measure mass accretion rates at low metallicity spectroscopically, to understand the effect of metallicity on accretion rates.

Reference: Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters
Status: Manuscript has been accepted

Weblink: http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.3149

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Email: vek@arm.ac.uk