Observations of magnetic fields in Herbig Ae/Be stars

Abstract

Models of magnetically driven accretion reproduce many observational properties of T Tauri stars. For the more massive Herbig Ae/Be stars, the corresponding picture has been questioned lately, in part driven by the fact that their magnetic fields are typically one order of magnitude weaker. Indeed, the search for magnetic fields in Herbig Ae/Be stars has been quite time consuming, with a detection rate of about 7%, also limited by the current potential to detect weak magnetic fields. Over the last two decades, magnetic fields were found in about twenty objects and for only two Herbig Ae/Be stars was the magnetic field geometry constrained. Further, studies were undertaken to investigate the time dependence of spectroscopic tracers of magnetospheric accretion. Overall, it seems that while there is proof that magneospheric accretion is present in some Herbig Ae stars, there is less evidence for the Herbig Be stars.