  Recent papers published in the last years contributed to resolve the enigma
on the hypothetical Be nature of the hot pulsating star $\beta$ Cep. This star
shows variable emission in the H$\alpha$ line, typical for Be stars, but its
projected rotational velocity is very much lower than the critical limit,
contrary to what is expected for a typical Be star. The emission has been
attributed to the secondary component of the $\beta$ Cep spectroscopic binary
system.
  In this paper, using both ours and archived spectra, we attempted to recover
the H$\alpha$ profile of the secondary component and to analyze its behavior
with time for a long period. To accomplish this task, we first derived the
atmospheric parameters of the primary: T$_{\rm eff}$ = 24000 $\pm$ 250 K and
$\log g$ = 3.91 $\pm$ 0.10, then we used these values to compute its synthetic
H$\alpha$ profile and finally we reconstructed the secondary's profile
disentangling the observed one.
  The secondary's H$\alpha$ profile shows the typical two peaks emission of a
Be star with a strong variability. We analyzed also the behavior versus time of
some line width parameters: equivalent width, V/R, FWHM, peaks separation and
radial velocity of the central depression.
  Projected rotational velocity ($v \sin i$) of the secondary and the dimension
of the equatorial surrounding disk have been estimated, too.

Astrophysics