Wind-dominated optical line emission from accretion disks around luminous cataclysmic variable stars

Details Wind-dominated optical line emission from accretion disks around luminous cataclysmic variable stars Wind-dominated optical line emission from accretion disks around luminous cataclysmic variable stars

Aug 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996natur.382..789m&link_type=abstract

Nature, Volume 382, Issue 6594, pp. 789-791 (1996).

Physics

25

Scientific paper

CATACLYSMIC variable stars are thought to consist of a low-mass star orbiting a more massive white-dwarf primary star. Gas from the secondary star flows onto the white dwarf by way of an accretion disk, and the recurrent outbursts that characterize these objects are attributed to either instabilities in the accretion disk (in the case of dwarf novae) or thermonuclear explosions of material accumulated on the white dwarf (for novae). Observations1,2 of low-luminosity cataclysmic variables have revealed double-peaked emission lines consistent with the accretion-disk picture. But the emission lines associated with high-luminosity cataclysmic variables are single-peaked3-9, which poses a considerable challenge for the disk theory10,11. It has been suggested that winds from the accretion disk, driven by radiation pressure, might be responsible for altering the emission-line characteristics4,10. Here we present a model of the disk wind in which the emission lines arise in a thin layer where the wind emerges from the disk. In our model, the accelerating wind introduces a pronounced anisotropy in the optical depth of the disk, from which single-peaked emission lines naturally arise.

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