Spectral Synthesis for Classical Ae Stars: H alpha and CaII

Classical Ae stars (CAe) are main sequence, A-type stars with H α emission but no signature of dust; they are thought to be the cool extension of the classical Be (CBe) stars to lower stellar masses. We investigate the use of H α and the CaII IR triplet observed at low spectroscopic resolution (R=1800) as diagnostics for the circumstellar disks of the CAe stars. Using a sample of 159 CAe stars from the LAMOST survey (DR5), we find that circumstellar disk masses and star/disk viewing inclination angles can be reliably determined from low resolution H α profiles. The CAe disk mass distribution agrees well with the previous range found for late-type CBe stars, although there is an apparent increase in disk mass for the latest CAe spectral sub-types (A3 and A4) which we attribute to selection effects. Over the spectral range A2 through B6, the average disk-to-star mass ratio for the CAe and CBe stars is consistent with 10(M disk/M*)=-9.1. A minority of the CAe sample (about 16%) also show emission in the CaII IR triplet. The observed emission is well within the range predicted by the disk models, and there is statistical evidence that the CaII emitters have systematically larger H α disk masses.