Investigating the Nature of Dust Disks in Weakly-Magnetic Cataclysmic Variables

Details Investigating the Nature of Dust Disks in Weakly-Magnetic Cataclysmic Variables Investigating the Nature of Dust Disks in Weakly-Magnetic Cataclysmic Variables

Apr 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009sptz.prop60107b&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #60107

Physics

Scientific paper

We propose to obtain 4.5 micron light curves and a single 3.6 micron measurement of four intermediate polars, a class of weakly-magnetic cataclysmic variables (CVs), in order to investigate the nature of dust in CVs. This proposal is motivated by results from our Cycle 2 observations, in which we discovered the presence of circumbinary dust disks in highly-magnetic CVs, and our Cycle 4 observations, in which 4.5 and 8 micron light curves of the non-magnetic CV, WZ Sge, revealed the presence of previously undetected dust associated with the accretion disk within the binary. This dichotomy in dust properties may be the result of evolutionary differences between highly-magnetic and non-magnetic CVs, or the different accretion processes occurring within the systems. Intermediate polars present a blend of non-magnetic and highly-magnetic CV properties, and therefore, Spitzer time-series observations of these systems will help to answer many of the questions that arose after our Cycle 2 and Cycle 4 observations, and will also answer outstanding questions about intermediate polars, such as if they are evolutionarily linked to highly-magnetic systems and how the cool component of the accretion disk is affected by the truncation of the hot inner component of the disk. The proposed observations will also have great relevance for our understanding of the physics and structure of accretion disks in general, those in binary systems as well as in active galaxies.

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