Modeling the Halpha line emission around classical T Tauri stars using magnetospheric accretion and disk wind models

TL;DR

This study models the Halpha emission in classical T Tauri stars by combining magnetospheric accretion and disk wind models, revealing how various parameters influence the line profiles and emphasizing the importance of both inflow and outflow processes.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive model integrating magnetospheric and disk wind contributions to Halpha emission, analyzing parameter effects on line profiles in classical T Tauri stars.

Findings

Halpha flux mainly from magnetosphere at standard parameters

Disk wind contribution increases with higher accretion rates, temperatures, and densities

Inner disk wind regions dominate the disk wind emission

Abstract

Spectral observations of classical T Tauri stars show a wide range of line profiles, many of which reveal signs of matter inflow and outflow. Halpha is the most commonly observed line profile due to its intensity, and it is highly dependent on the characteristics of the surrounding environment of these stars. Our aim is to analyze how the Halpha line profile is affected by the various parameters of our model which contains both the magnetospheric and disk wind contributions to the Halpha flux. We used a dipolar axisymmetric stellar magnetic field to model the stellar magnetosphere and a modified Blandford & Payne model was used in our disk wind region. A three-level atom with continuum was used to calculate the required Hydrogen level populations. We use the Sobolev approximation and a ray-by-ray method to calculate the integrated line profile. Through an extensive study of the model parameter space, we have investigated the contribution of many of the model parameters on the calculated line profiles. Our results show that the Halpha line is strongly dependent on the densities and temperatures inside the magnetosphere and the disk wind region. The bulk of the flux comes, most of the time, from the magnetospheric component for standard classical T Tauri stars parameters, but the disk wind contribution becomes more important as the mass accretion rate, the temperatures and densities inside the disk wind increase. We have also found that most of the disk wind contribution to the Halpha line is emitted at the innermost region of the disk wind. Models that take into consideration both inflow and outflow of matter are a necessity to fully understand and describe classical T Tauri stars.