The early nineties saw the development of a new model for accretion in T Tauri stars, the magnetospheric accretion model [Camenzind 1990,Konigl 1991,Shu et al. 1994]. This model provides the solution for a long standing problem in the understanding of T Tauri stars, namely how angular momentum is shed in order to keep the rotational velocities as low as observed despite accreting matter from a quasi-keplerian accretion disk. If angular momentum was not dissipated such accretion would spin up the star to breakup velocities. From this, the importance of magnetospheric accretion in low mass star formation becomes clear. Such an important model must stand on a solid ground and should therefore be thoroughly tested. High resolution spectroscopy in the near infrared opens new possibilities for testing the magnetospheric accretion model by studying the line profiles of hydrogen lines such as Pa Beta and Br Gamma. These lines are expected to be optically thinner and to form closer to the star than most of the bright Balmer lines usually used to test the model. Furthermore, given the possibility of these lines being formed in, or at least affected by, outflowing material, such a study also probes the physical conditions in the winds of T Tauri stars.
With this in mind, a survey of a sample of T Tauri stars, mainly from the Taurus-Auriga complex, was carried out using CGS4 at UKIRT, with which velocity resolved profiles of the Pa Beta and Br Gamma lines were obtained. The observational line study was complemented with radiative transfer modeling of the line profiles using very simple wind and accretion scenarios.
Absorption lines of photospheric origin were identified in the observed wavelength ranges. These could be used to measure the near infrared veiling for T Tauri stars at the J and K bands.
In the next sections a summary of the results obtained from the Pa Beta and Br Gamma line studies and from the near infrared veiling study together with their implications are presented. Finally, future directions are discussed.