A Photometric Technique to Search for Be Stars in Open Clusters

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  • 6 October 2004
Abstract
We describe a technique to identify Be stars in open clusters using Stromgren b, y, and narrow-band H-alpha photometry. We first identify the B-type stars of the cluster using a theoretical isochrone fit to the (b-y, y) color-magnitude diagram. The strongest Be stars are easily identified in a (b-y, y-H-alpha) color-color diagram, but those with weaker H-alpha emission (classified as possible Be star detections) may be confused with evolved or foreground stars. Here we present such photometry plus H-alpha spectroscopy of members of the cluster NGC 3766 to demonstrate the accuracy of our technique. Statistics on the relative numbers of Be and B-type stars in additional clusters will be presented in a future paper.

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