A statistical spectropolarimetric study of Herbig Ae/Be stars

We present Halpha linear spectropolarimetry of a large sample of Herbig Ae/Be stars. Together with newly obtained data for 17 objects, the sample contains 56 objects, the largest such sample to date. A change in linear polarization across the Halpha line is detected in 42 (75 %) objects, which confirms the previous finding that the circumstellar environment around these stars on small spatial scales has an asymmetric structure, which is typically identified with a disk. A second outcome of this research is that we confirm that Herbig Ae stars are similar to T Tauri stars in displaying a line polarization effect, while depolarization is more common among Herbig Be stars. This finding had been suggested previously to indicate that Herbig Ae stars form in the same manner than T Tauri stars through magnetospheric accretion. It appears that the transition between these two differing polarization line effects occurs around the B7-B8 spectral type. This would in turn not only suggest that Herbig Ae stars accrete in a similar fashion as lower mass stars, but also that this accretion mechanism switches to a different type of accretion for Herbig Be stars. We report that the magnitude of the line effect caused by electron scattering close to the stars does not exceed 2%. Only a very weak correlation is found between the magnitude of the line effect and the spectral type or the strength of the Halpha line. This indicates that the detection of a line effect only relies on the geometry of the line-forming region and the geometry of the scattering electrons.