Broad Wings around Hα and Hβ in the S-type Symbiotic Stars

Symbiotic stars are binary systems composed of a hot white dwarf and a mass losing giant. Many symbiotic stars are known to exhibit broad wings around Balmer emission line. We show high resolution spectra of S-type symbiotic stars, Z Andromedae and AG Draconis, obtained with the ESPaDOnS and the 3.6 m Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, in which we find prominent broad wings around Balmer lines. We adopt Monte-Carlo technique to consider two types of wing formation mechanisms, which are Thomson scattering by free electron in H II region and Raman scattering by atomic hydrogen in H I region. We find that Thomson wings of $H{\alpha}$ and $H{\beta}$ have the same widths in the Doppler space due to the cross section independent of wavelength. In contrast, Raman $H{\alpha}$ wings are 3 times broader widths than $H{\beta}$ counterparts, which is attributed to the different cross sections and branching ratios. Our CFHT data show that $H{\alpha}$ wings of Z Andromedae and AG Draconis are broader than $H{\beta}$ wings, lending strong support to the Raman scattering origin of Balmer wings in these objects.