Calculating Line Profiles of Non-Spherical Stars

We present a method for calculating synthetic line profiles for rapidly rotating, non-spherical stars. This parallel code includes the effects of the Doppler shift produced by the surface rotation, and is capable of simultaneously calculating the observed line profile for several different degrees of inclination between the observer and the star’s rotation axis. As expected, we find a significant difference between the line profile of a rapidly rotating star viewed pole on and the same star viewed equator on. This is a result of the increasing component of the rotational velocity along the line of sight, leading to a larger Doppler broadening. Using this code, we hope to model several line profiles and compare with observed spectra for rapidly rotating stars. Based on the shapes of these line profiles, it may be possible to constrain the inclination of the star, and other properties such as the latitudinal temperature variation.