Parametric determination of the inclination, velocity and density structure of circumstellar discs from spectropolarimetric profiles of scattered lines
Abstract
An analytic treatment is presented which determines the spectropolarimetric line profiles resulting from single Thomson scattering of monochromatic stellar line radiation in a moving thin circumstellar disc. Expressions are obtained for the scattered Stokes fluxes in terms of the disc velocity and density profiles and the inclination of its rotation axis to the line of sight. The shape of the scattered polarimetric line profile contains information on the inclination and velocity and density distributions of the disc. It is shown that, under certain parametrizations of these distributions, analysis of spectropolarimetric line data yields the disc inclination and most of the other parameters of the system. The analysis presented may be applied to the Thomson scattering of any photospheric absorption or emission lines in circumstellar discs.
- Publication:
-
X-Ray and Ultraviolet Polarimetry
- Pub Date:
- February 1994
- DOI:
- 10.1117/12.168572
- Bibcode:
- 1994SPIE.2010..126W