Homogeneous study of Herbig Ae/Be stars from spectral energy distributions and Gaia EDR3

TL;DR

This study analyzes 209 Herbig Ae/Be stars using homogeneous spectral energy distribution fitting and Gaia EDR3 data, providing a comprehensive statistical overview of their stellar and circumstellar properties.

Contribution

It offers the largest homogeneous dataset of HAeBe stars derived from SEDs and Gaia data, enabling improved statistical analysis of their properties.

Findings

Stellar parameters were uniformly derived for all stars.

Infrared excesses and circumstellar properties were characterized.

The sample's mass distribution fits the initial mass function within 2-12 solar masses.

Abstract

(Abridged) Herbig Ae/Be stars (HAeBes) have so far been studied based on relatively small samples that are scattered throughout the sky. Their fundamental stellar and circumstellar parameters and statistical properties were derived with heterogeneous approaches before Gaia. Our main goal is to contribute to the study of HAeBes from the largest sample of such sources to date, for which stellar and circumstellar properties have been determined homogeneously from the analysis of the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and Gaia EDR3 parallaxes and photometry. Multiwavelength photometry was compiled for 209 bona fide HAeBes for which Gaia EDR3 distances were estimated. Using the Virtual Observatory SED Analyser (VOSA), photospheric models were fit to the optical SEDs to derive stellar parameters, and the excesses at infrared (IR) and longer wavelengths were characterized to derive several circumstellar properties. The stellar temperature, luminosity, radius, mass, and age were derived for each star based on optical photometry. In addition, their IR SEDs were classified according to two different schemes, and their mass accretion rates, disk masses, and the sizes of the inner dust holes were also estimated uniformly. The initial mass function fits the stellar mass distribution of the sample within 2 < M_star/M_sun < 12. In this aspect, the sample is therefore representative of the HAeBe regime and can be used for statistical purposes when it is taken into account that the boundaries are not well probed. A statistical analysis was carried out mainly focused on the different circumstellar properties of Herbig Ae (HAe) and Be (HBe) stars. The complete dataset is available online through a Virtual Observatory-compliant archive, representing the most recent reference for statistical studies on the HAeBe regime.