Analysis of Archival FUSE Spectra of Accreting White Dwarfs in Cataclysmic Variables

Details Analysis of Archival FUSE Spectra of Accreting White Dwarfs in Cataclysmic Variables Analysis of Archival FUSE Spectra of Accreting White Dwarfs in Cataclysmic Variables

Jan 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21712303g&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #123.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Scientific paper

We study the accreting white dwarfs (WDs) and accretion disks in Cataclysmic Variables (CVs) by carrying out a systematic analysis of the FUSE spectra of galactic CVs. Using the codes TLUSTY, SYNSPEC and BINSYSN, we generate synthetic spectra of WDs, and accretion disks, and derive the parameters of the systems: the temperature of the WD, its gravity, projected rotational velocity, chemical aundances, and the mass accretion rate. We use these results to probe the evolution of CVs and accretion physics.
Our findings confirm that gravitational radiation can account for the WD effective temperature of polars both above and below the gap. Above the gap, the majority of DNs have a temperature lower than expected by the standard theory, and NL VY systems have a temperature higher than expected from the standard theory.Overall, it seems that the standard model does not agree with the nonmagnetic CVs above the period gap. A higher than expected temperature for the NL VY could be accounted for with a higher mass accretion rate.
For disk-dominated systems, we find that the basic standard disk model fails almost systematically to fit the data. We find that the disk model must be improved at high accretion rate to include the star-disk boundary layer.
As a scientific byproduct of this research we also create a web-based catalog of all the (fully reduced and co-added) FUSE spectra of CVs, including also all the synthetic spectra. This catalog will enable the full exploitation of the tremendous potential of the FUSE data for CVs on a large scale. This will be of invaluable importance for future NASA FUV space missions and it will add much value to the NASA FUSE mission itself.
This work is supported by NASA under grant NNX08AJ39G issued though the Office of Astrophysics Data Analysis Program.

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