A MONTE CARLO STUDY OF FLUX RATIOS OF RAMAN SCATTERED O VI FEATURES AT 6825 Å AND 7082 Å IN SYMBIOTIC STARS

A symbiotic star is a wide binary system consisting of a hot white dwarf and a mass losing giant, where the giant loses its material in the form of a slow stellar wind resulting in accretion onto the white dwarf through gravitational capture. Symbiotic stars are known to exhibit unique spectral features at 6825 and 7082, which are formed from O VI 1032 and 1038 through Raman scattering with atomic hydrogen. In this Monte Carlo study we investigate the flux ratio of 6825 and 7082 in a neutral region with a geometric shape of a slab, cylinder and sphere. By varying the amount of neutral hydrogen parametrized by the column density along a specified direction, we compute and compare the flux ratio of Raman scattered O VI 6825 and 7082. In the column density around 1020 cm-2, flux ratio changes in a complicated way, rapidly decreasing from the optically thin limit to unity the optically thick limit as the column density increases. It is also notable that when the neutral region is of a slab shape with the O VI source outside the slab, the optically thick limit is less than unity, implying a significant fraction of O VI photons escape through Rayleigh scattering near the boundary. We compare our high resolution CFHT data of HM Sge and AG Dra with the data simulated with finite cylinder models confirming that 'S' type symbiotic tend to be characterized by thicker HI region that 'D' type counterparts. It is expected that this study will be useful in interpretation of the clear disparity of Raman O VI 6825 and 7082 profiles, which will shed much light on the kinematics and the asymmetric distribution of O VI material around the hot white dwarf.