Program: GS-2013B-Q-6

Disks around B[e] stars are dense and cool allowing for efficient molecule and dust condensation. But the only molecule searched for so far is CO, while chemical analyses predict that molecules different from CO should also form in reasonable amounts. Studies of disks around young stellar objects revealed hot water in stars with strong CO band emission. CO band emission traces the density and temperature at the inner edge of the molecular disk region i.e. only at one distance from the star. Hot water arises from distances farther away and hence traces a complementary disk region needed for a better understanding of the global structure of circumstellar disks. Water also indicates a rich organic chemistry and traces regions of planet formation via strong masing emission. We propose the use of Flamingos-2 in low-resolution (R=1200) mode to search for the emission bands of hot water in the H+K-band spectra of nine evolved B[e] stars. All the selected targets exhibit CO band heads in emission, making their disks ideal environments to host hot water.