The spin periods of magnetic cataclysmic variables

Details The spin periods of magnetic cataclysmic variables The spin periods of magnetic cataclysmic variables

2003-01-17

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0301351v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

To appear in 'Magnetic Cataclysmic Variables' Proceedings of IAU Colloquium 190, December 2002, Capetown, South Africa, ASP Co

Scientific paper

We have used a model of magnetic accretion to investigate the rotational equilibria of magnetic cataclysmic variables (mCVs). This has enabled us to derive a set of equilibrium spin periods as a function of orbital period and magnetic moment which we use to estimate the magnetic moments of all known intermediate polars. We further show how these equilibrium spin periods relate to the polar synchronisation condition and use these results to calculate the theoretical histogram describing the distribution of magnetic CVs as a function of P_spin / P_orb. We demonstrate that this is in remarkable agreement with the observed distribution assuming that the number of systems as a function of white dwarf magnetic moment is distributed according to N(mu_1) d mu_1 ~ mu_1^{-2} d mu_1.

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