A spectroscopic survey of Herbig Ae/Be stars with X-Shooter – II. Accretion diagnostic lines

The Herbig Ae/Be stars (HAeBes) allow an exploration of the properties of Pre- Main Sequence(PMS) stars above the low-mass range ( 8M ). This paper is the second in a series exploring accretion in 91 HAeBes with Very Large Telescope/X-shooter spectra. Equivalent width mea- surements are carried out on 32 di erent lines, spanning the UV to NIR, in order to obtain their line luminosities. The line luminosities were compared to accretion lumi- nosities, which were determined directly from measurements of an UV-excess. When detected, emission lines always demonstrate a correlation with the accretion lumi- nosity, regardless of detection frequency. The average relationship between accretion luminosity and line luminosity is found to be Lacc/Lline 1:16 0:15. This is in agree- ment with the ndings in Classical T Tauri stars, although the HAeBe relationship is generally steeper, particularly towards the Herbig Be mass range. Since all observed lines display a correlation with the accretion luminosity, all of them can be used as ac- cretion tracers. This has increased the number of accretion diagnostic lines in HAeBes tenfold. However, questions still remain on the physical origin of each line, which may not be due to accretion.