Space Sciences Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1341

Cyclic and apparent transient variability in the winds of Be stars are discussed. Short-term cyclical variability can be explained by either nonradial pulsations (NRP) or stellar rotation, whereas long-term wind changes are probably connected with quasi-periodic activity cycles that may be caused by magnetic fields. Often what is thought to be a transient event is actually a phase-dependent variation in the circumstellar material in an interacting binary. Binarity effects in a well-known Be/Algol-type system (CX Dra) and transient wind variations in a suspected interacting binary (FY CMa) are discussed.

In Interplay between periodic, cyclic and stochastic variability in selected areas of the H-R diagram, ed. C. Sterken, ASP Conf. Series, in press.
Preprints from gjpeters@mucen.usc.edu