MEASURING THE STELLAR ACCRETION RATES OF HERBIG Ae/Be STARS

The accretion rate of young stars is a fundamental characteristic of these systems. While accretion onto T Tauri stars has been studied extensively, little work has been done on measuring the accretion rate of their intermediate-mass analogs, the Herbig Ae/Be stars. Measuring the stellar accretion rate of Herbig Ae/Bes is not straightforward both because of the dearth of metal absorption lines available for veiling measurements and the intrinsic brightness of Herbig Ae/Be stars at ultraviolet wavelengths where the brightness of the accretion shock peaks. Alternative approaches to measuring the accretion rate of young stars by measuring the luminosity of proxies such as the Br gamma emission line have not been calibrated. A promising approach is the measurement of the veiling of the Balmer discontinuity. We present measurements of this veiling as well as the luminosity of Br gamma. We show that the relationship between the luminosity of Br. and the stellar accretion rate for classical T Tauri stars is consistent with Herbig Ae stars but not Herbig Be stars. We discuss the implications of this finding for understanding the interaction of the star and disk for Herbig Ae/Be stars.