Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Apr 1985
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1985a%26a...145..227r&link_type=abstract
Astronomy and Astrophysics (ISSN 0004-6361), vol. 145, no. 1, April 1985, p. 227-231. Sponsorship: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinscha
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
21
Cataclysmic Variables, Mass Transfer, Stellar Evolution, Stellar Magnetic Fields, Stellar Mass Ejection, Stellar Winds, Dwarf Novae, Kepler Laws, Orbital Mechanics, Stellar Mass Accretion, Thermodynamic Equilibrium
Scientific paper
It is shown that, if the period gap of cataclysmic binaries is to be understood according to the model of Spruit and Ritter (1983) and Rappaport et al. (1983), the secondary of systems with an orbital period near 3 hours must suffer mass loss on a time scale which is shorter by about a factor of 10 than the Kelvin-Helmholtz time of the secondary in thermal equilibrium. The corresponding mass loss rate must be of the order (1-2) x 10 to the -9th solar mass/yr. It is found that magnetic braking according to Verbunt and Zwaan (1981) can account for such a high mass transfer rate provided the free parameter f in their braking law is f = about 0.6-0.8 (M1/solar mass) to the -1/2. The braking law derived by Patterson (1984), on the other hand, results in mass transfer rates for systems near the upper edge of the gap which are too low to account for the observed width of the gap. Furthermore, in the framework of disk instability models for dwarf nova outbursts, this braking law results in a period distribution of nova-like systems and dwarf novae which is inconsistent with observations.
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