Chromospheres and Winds of Cool Stars

Extract

I present data acquired during the early operations era of the HST with the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS) on three late-type giant and supergiant stars: α Tau (K5 III non-coronal), λ Dra (K5 III hybrid), and α Ori (M2 lab). Figure 1 shows fits to echelle (R=100,000) line profiles of three ions seen in the spectrum of α Tau. The Co II line can be fit with a single gaussian, the self-reversed Fe II line with a combination of an emission and absorption gaussian, but the unreversed C II lines require two emission gaussians of substantially different FWHM and maxima. The complex shape of the C II profiles suggests that the turbulent velocity distribution in the chromosphere is anisotropic (e.g. Gray 1988) or that the lines are formed in two regions characterized by significantly different T_eff and V_turb, as in the hybrid star models of Harper (1991).