Physics
Scientific paper
Jul 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002hst..prop.9406p&link_type=abstract
HST Proposal ID #9406
Physics
Hst Proposal Id #9406
Scientific paper
A terrible puzzle has long afflicted our understanding of the evolution of cataclysmic variables {CVs}. Angular momentum loss should grind the binaries down to orbital periods near 1.3 hr in 2 - 4 Gyr, and then slowly drive them apart again. Most CVs should therefore have undergone ``period bounce" long ago, and be evolving towards longer period, with secondaries << 0.1 M_odot. However, not a single post-bounce CV has been conclusively identified. Where are the old CVs hiding? They should be hard to find since they're probably faint intrinsically, and because their accretion rates may be too low to trigger dwarf-nova eruptions. One, and only one, good candidate appears in the Lowell proper-motion lists. This is GD 552: noneruptive, possessing a light secondary, and probably the least luminous CV yet found {M_V > +12.5}. An accurate FGS parallax will establish whether this object {clearly very nearby} signifies a large population of very old CVs. A 1200 - 10000 Angstrom spectrum would likely represent a pure steady-state low-dot M disk {the only one known}, and the FUV region would provide a measurement of T_ eff in a white dwarf long after eruptive heating episodes have stopped. The UV observation obviously requires HST, and efforts to measure the parallax from the ground are thwarted by a background star 0^ .7 distant.
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