The Accretion Rates and White Dwarf Components of Nova-Like Cataclysmic Variables

Details The Accretion Rates and White Dwarf Components of Nova-Like Cataclysmic Variables The Accretion Rates and White Dwarf Components of Nova-Like Cataclysmic Variables

Jan 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21349109m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #491.09; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.468

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present the results of a multi-component synthetic spectral analysis of the archival far ultraviolet spectra of several key nova-like variables including members of the SW Sex, RW Tri, UX UMa and VY Scl subclasses: KR Aur, V795 Her, BP Lyn, V825 Her, HL Aqr, RW Tri and V425 Cas. Accretion rates as well as the flux contribution of the accreting white dwarf are included in our analysis. Except for RW Tri which has a reliable trigonometric parallax, we computed the distances to the nova-like systems using the method of Knigge(2006, MNRAS, 373, 484). For KR Aur, we find that the white dwarf has T_eff = 29,000 +/- 2000K, log g = 8.4 and contributes 18% of the FUV flux while an accretion disk with accretion rate Mdot = 3 x 10-10 Msun/yr at an inclination of 41 degrees, contributes the remainder. Our analysis of seven archival IUE spectra of RW Tri at its parallax distance consistently yields a low mass (0.4 Msun) white dwarf and an average accretion rate, Mdot = 6.3 x 10-9 Msun/yr. We find that an accreting white dwarf rather than accretion disk dominates the far UV spectrum of V425 Cas while HL Aqr's and V825 Her's FUV spectra are dominated by an accretion disk with Mdot = 1 x 10-9 Msun/yr and 3 x 10-9 Msun/yr, respectively. For BP Lyn we find Mdot = 1 x 10-8 Msun/yr and we explore the possiblity that V795 Her is an intermediate polar. We discuss the implications of our results for the evolutionary status of nova-like variables.
This work is supported by NSF grant AST-0807892 to Villanova University and by the Delaware Space Grant Consortium

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