Evidence for Different Disk Mass Distributions between Early- and Late-type Be Stars in the BeSOS Survey

Abstract The circumstellar disk density distributions for a sample of 63 Be southern stars from the BeSOS survey were found by modeling their Hα emission line profiles. These disk densities were used to compute disk masses and disk angular momenta for the sample. Average values for the disk mass are 3.4 × 10−9 and 9.5 × 10−10 M ⋆ for early (B0–B3) and late (B4–B9) spectral types, respectively. We also find that the range of disk angular momentum relative to the star is (150–200)J ⋆/M ⋆ and (100–150)J ⋆/M ⋆, again for early- and late-type Be stars, respectively. The distributions of the disk mass and disk angular momentum are different between early- and late-type Be stars at a 1% level of significance. Finally, we construct the disk mass distribution for the BeSOS sample as a function of spectral type and compare it to the predictions of stellar evolutionary models with rapid rotation. The observed disk masses are typically larger than the theoretical predictions, although the observed spread in disk masses is typically large.