Detection of accreting circumstellar gas around weak emission-line Herbig Ae/Be stars

We present archival and recent IUE high dispersion spectra of late B stars which reveal the presence of accreting gas with velocities as high as 350 km s^–1, collisional ionization of the accreting gas to temperatures above the stellar T_eff, and column densities intermediate between those observed toward classical Herbig Ae/Be stars and the nearby proto-planetary system Pictoris. One of the stars, HD 176386, while lacking obvious optical signatures of youth, is a member of the R CrA star formation region, and with an inferred age of 2.8 Myr has not yet arrived on the zero-age main sequence (ZAMS). The other object, an isolated, field B star with pronounced IR excess due to warm, circumstellar dust, 51 Oph, exhibits only modest h emission. The combination of high velocity, accreting gas in systems with IR excesses due to circumstellar dust suggests that not only are these objects candidate proto-planetary systems, but that they may represent an extension to higher stellar masses of the weak-emission pre-main sequence (PMS) stars.Paper presented at the Conference onPlanetary Systems: Formation, Evolution, and Detection held 7–10 December, 1992 at CalTech, Pasadena, California, U.S.A.