Symbiotic stars are known as binary systems of a giant with heavy mass loss and a white dwarf accompanied by an emission nebula. They often show bipolar nebulae, and are believed to form an accretion disk around the white dwarf component by attracting the slow but heavy stellar wind around the giant companion. However, the existence and physical properties of the accretion disk in these systems still remain controversial. Unique to the spectra of symbiotic stars is the existence of the symbiotic bands around 6830Å and 7088Å , which have been identified by Schmid (1989) as the Raman scattered features of the O VI 1032Å and 1038Å doublet by atomic hydrogen. Due to the incoherency of the Raman scattering, these features have very broad profiles and they are also strongly polarized. In the accretion disk emission model, it is expected that the Raman features are polarized perpendicular to the binary axis and show multiple peak structures in the profile, because the neutral scatterers located near the giant component views the accretion disk in the edge-on direction. Assuming the presence of scattering regions outflowing in the polar directions, we may explain the additional red wing or red peak structure, which is polarized parallel to the binary axis. We argue that in the accretion disk emission model it is predicted that the profile of the Raman feature around 6830Å is different from the profile of the 7088Å because the O VI line optical depth varies locally around the white dwarf component. We conclude that the Raman scattered features are an important tool to investigate the physical conditions and geometrical configuration of the accretion disk in a symbiotic star.

• 이희원(연세대학교 천문우주학과) | LEE HEE-WON (Department of Astronomy, Yonsei University)