Diego de la Fuente, Francisco Najarro, Miriam García. 2017. On the Binary Origin of FS CMa Stars: Young Massive Clusters as Test Beds. Be Phenomenon: Forty Years of Studies, Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series, 508, 137-142
FS CMa stars are low-luminosity objects showing the B[e] phenomenon whose evolutionary origin is yet to be unraveled. Various binary-related hypotheses have been recently proposed, two of them involving a spiral-in evolution of the binary orbit. The latter occurs more often in dense stellar environments, such as young massive clusters (YMCs). Hence, a systematic study of FS CMa stars in YMCs would be crucial to find out how these objects are created. Two FS CMa stars have been confirmed and three candidates have been found in YMCs through a search method based on narrow band photometry at Paschen-alpha and the neighboring continuum. We apply this method to archival data from the Paschen-alpha survey of the Galactic Center region, yielding a new candidate in the Quintuplet cluster. Limitations of this method and other alternatives are briefly discussed.
