We present the most suitable data sets available in the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) archive for the study of time-dependent stellar winds in early B supergiants. The UV line profile variability in 11 B0 to B3 stars is analyzed, compared and discussed, based on 16 separate data sets comprising over 600 homogeneously reduced high-resolution spectrograms. The targets include 'normal' stars with moderate rotation rates and examples of rapid rotators. A gallery of grey-scale images (dynamic spectra) is presented, which demonstrates the richness and range of wind variability and highlights different structures in the winds of these stars. This work emphasizes the suitability of B supergiants for wind studies, under-pinned by the fact that they exhibit unsaturated wind lines for a wide range of ionization. The wind activity of B supergiants is substantial and has highly varied characteristics. The variability evident in individual stars is classified and described in terms of discrete absorption components, spontaneous absorption, bowed structures, recurrence, and ionization variability and stratification. Similar structures can occur in stars of different fundamental parameters but also different structures may occur in the same star at a given epoch. We discuss the physical phenomena that may be associated with the spectral signatures, and highlight the challenges that these phenomena present to theoretical studies of time-dependent outflows in massive stars. In addition, SEI line-synthesis modelling of the UV wind lines is used to provide further information about the state of the winds in our program stars. Typically the range, implied by the line profile variability, in the product of mass-loss rate and ion fraction (M qi) is a factor of approximately 1.5, when integrated between 0.2 and 0.9 v infinity; it it can however be several times larger over localized velocity regions. At a given effective temperature the mean relative ion ratios can differ by a f

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The idea of having a meeting came to the Editors when working on several aspects of galactic Be and B[e] stars. They found that a general summary of the properties of B[e] stars was missing, so that the organiza tion of a first meeting on these objects appeared as very useful. B[e] stars have hydrogen line emission and forbidden [Fe 11] and [0 I] emission lines in their spectra; they are also characterized by a strong IR excess due to circumstellar dust. Having a large amount of extinction in the UV and the visual they have been less frequently observed than other emission line objects. Although about one hundred galactic objects have been classified as B[e], only fif teen or so have been studied in some detail. Besides this, the evolutionary status of these objects is rat her controversial, are they pre-main sequence or stars on the way to become nUclei of planetary nebulae? Other difficult problems appear when considering the relations of these stars with other similar groups, like Herbig AeBe stars, Be, luminous blue variables and the superluminous B[e] stars observed in the Magellanic Clouds. The conference seems timely since large surveys like DENIS and 2Mass, plus new space and new instruments for the micron, millimeter and cen timeter wavelength region will result in the discovery of more stars of this group.

Presents observational and theoretical papers from world experts addressing the important role in astrophysics of massive stars.

Excellent, informative volume focuses on dynamics of nonradiating fluids, problems involving waves, shocks and stellar winds, physics of radiation, radiation transport, and the dynamics of radiating fluids. 1984 edition.

Outstanding progress in near-infrared detection technology and in real-time image processing has led astronomers to start undertaking all-sky surveys in the 1--2 mum range (project DENIS in Europe and 2MASS in the U.S.A.), surveys which will have a considerable impact in various areas of astronomy. This book gathers the contributions of more than 80 specialists involved in fields of interest as different as low mass stars, late stages of stellar evolution, star formation, stellar populations of the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds, the local structure of the Universe, and observational cosmology. It describes the impact on these fields of the exhaustive data bases and catalogs of stars and galaxies that these surveys will provide. The considerable interest of these documents for the future of infrared space and ground-based projects and the complementarity with other currently ongoing or planned surveys in other spectral ranges are emphasized.