Cataclysmic Variable Stars

A Brief Overview

What is a Cataclysmic
Variable?
Close binary system
Primary = White Dwarf
Secondary = (usually) Red Dwarf

Mass transfer from secondary

X-Ray emission
Roche Lobe Geometry
Accretion Disks (not always though)
Characterized by strong, somewhat irregular
variations

Light Curve of SS Cyg

How do CVs form?

Close binary system
Primary star (more massive) evolves to
WD
Go through a common envelope period
Orbital distance decreases
Binary system acts as propeller pushing
gas away
Left with naked binary system

How do CVs form?

Red Dwarf fills Roche Lobe

Material begins to accrete onto the WD
Inner Lagrangian Point
Effect of filled Roche lobe is tidal locking of Red Dwarf
Secondary (Red Dwarf) stars outer layers are distorted
by the WD (remember its a close binary) - Ellipsoidal
variations

Mass Transfer
Red Dwarf fills Roche Lobe and
accretes matter onto the WD through
Lagrangian point
Turbulence and friction cause the
stream of matter to spread into a disc
(sometimes)
How does the system maintain this
mass transfer?

Mass Transfer
its all about conserving angular momentum

Gravitational Radiation
Radiation of energy in
gravity waves
Usually only significant
with VERY massive
objects
Becomes significant in
extremely close systems
with very short periods

Magnetic Braking
Corotating mag fields
accelerate stellar wind
particles to high speeds
carrying away angular
momentum
Usually this would cause
the star to slow down its
rotation
Cant happen because of
tidal locking, so instead
the orbital distance
decreases

Non-Magnetic CVs: The

Accretion Disc
Mass transferred in stream through the
Lagrangian point is slowed down and spread
out into a disk by turbulence and friction
Creation of the Bright Spot
Stream from secondary strikes edge of disc
Turbulence - KE of stream converted the heat and
radiated away
Outcome - a very hot bright spot (radiates in x-ray)

The Bright Spot

Characteristic
light curves
Orbital Humps
Bright Spot
Eclipses
Grazing
Eclipses
Light curve of Z Cha

Spectra of accretion disc

Sometimes emission,
sometimes absorption
Indicates changes
between optically
thick and optically thin
Expect double peaked
profile from disc
material, not always
seen
Not fully understood

Distribution of orbital periods

Period min
Period gap

Long
Period
Cut-off

Dwarf Novae
Changes of several Mag in short time
Stay bright for ~week, then decline. Cycle repeats
months later
U Gem and SS Cyg

Disc instability
Viscosity of disc causes pile up
Disc becomes unstable and heats up and expands
both inward and outward

Increased mass transfer from secondary

Opinion leans toward disc instability
Observations of increased disc radius
Uniformity of bright spot L
Theoretical success with instability

Dwarf Novae - accretion disc

physics

Viscosity
Magnetic Turbulence
Thermal Instabilities
Heating and cooling waves
Lead to different shapes of outbursts
and different durations of the outburst

Novalikes (UX Uma)

Disc remains hot (higher mass flow) and
viscous
Stays in a state of constant outburst
Can be brought back to quiescence when
something like a star spot crosses Lagrangian
point
Z Cam stars - intermediate between Dwarf
Novae and Novalike (standstills)
Behaves like regular dwarf novae until an outburst
brings it back to novalike state

Other causes for variation

Elliptical Discs
Tidal torques and resonances
Spiral shocks
Flared discs
SW Sex Stars

Winds
Disc-stream spill over
Superoutbursts - SU UMa stars
Similar to DN but last much longer, more regular
Also display superhumps
Relation to period gap

Infrahumps?
the lesson - this is complicated

Novae

Accretion builds up
Runaway thermonuclear reactions
System re-enter common envelope phase
Blow off outer shell (P Cygni profile)
Recurring Novae
Amount of accretion necessary depends on mass of WD
Short time scale (~100yrs) could occur for stars near the
Chandrasekhar limit
Also possible in systems with evolving secondary (possibly
not actually novae)
There are a few systems known that could possibly be
recurring novae

Can CVs Supernova?

Super soft x-ray sources

Magnetic CVs
Strong Mag fields
Feedback from charged particles and mag
fields
End result - particles frozen in to field

Inner zone dominated by B field

(Magnetosphere)
Outer zone acts like non-magnetic CV
Boundary layer, poorly understood

AM Her Stars (Polars)

STRONG B fields (~10-100 MG or more)
Synchronous rotation (WD and orbital period)
B field from WD can still dominates at Lagrangian point
Even when it doesnt, magnetosphere is close enough that disc
never forms
Stream diverted along field lines
Form very concentrated accretion regions at the poles

AM Her Stars
Accretion hot spots at
poles
Accretion shocks (xrays)
Orientation changes s.t.
one pole of WD aligns
with stream
Makes for very strong
obvious eclipse of the
accretion hot spot

Accretion regions
Smaller particles form hot accretion column
Other particles collide with accretion column
and slow down - accretion shock
Accretion columns are sources of hard x-rays
Denser blobs not affected by accretion
column, go directly to surface of WD
Denser material landing on WD leads to more
soft x-rays

Polarization in AM Her Stars

Cyclotron radiation
Extremely polarized
Known as Polars
Measurement of polarization can give
you orientation of magnetic axis of WD
Can also give you knowledge about
binary inclination
Can tell you about field strength

Asynchronous Rotation
Observation of light curves of accretion
regions can show asynchronous rotation
Usually only off by ~1%
Possibly knocked out of synchronous rotation
V1500Cyg Nova

System might have B field just a little too

weak to cause synchronous rotation

Intermediate Polars - DQ Her

Non synchronous rotation (WD spin period and xray flux periods dont match)
Discless
Magnetosphere rotation adjusts so it is at the same
speed as the Keplerian orbit

Can they form discs?

If r of the magnetosphere < rmin of material - YES
If r is magnetosphere > rmin - No
What about in between?
Diamagnetic blobs with induced current

Polarization not observed in most intermediate

polars (smaller B field, and presence of disc)
Mag field presence deduced from pulsed x-rays

Intermediate Polars (Contd)

Disc fed accretion
Pulsations due to accretion curtain
These can be observed in the optical also,
because the curtain material is optically bright

DQ Her
Not a real DQ Her star
No x-ray flux
Effect of x-ray flux detectable in disc

XY Ari
DN behavior from disc - but pulsed x-rays like AM
Her

Propellers
Magnetosphere radius > corotation
Extremely rapid rotations
Diamagnetic blobs accelerated by field lines
and expelled from the system
AE Aqr
33 sec period of WD with 9.9 hr orbital period
Mass tranfer estimated 1000x > amount acreting
onto WD

WZ Sge
Long periods of quiescence followed by super
outbursts
Could be due to build up prevented by propeller
behavior

Flickering and Quasi-Periodic

Oscillations
Mass transfer is turbulent
U Gem (grazing eclipse) implies flickering
occurs in the bright spot
HT Cas (full eclipse) indicates it occurs at the
inner disc
QPOs observed in dwarf novae and AM Her
Not fully understood
White dwarf pulsations
ZZ Ceti stars

Secondary star variations

Pulsation in secondary star

Star spots
Evolution of secondary star
These would all have strong effect on mass
transfer rates
VY Scl
Novalike stars that appear to go through periods of
no mass transfer

Another factor to consider

Summary

CVs do share common characteristics

Many causes of variation
Lots of physics (complicated)
Two major classes of CVs
Non Magnetic
Accretion Disc, Bright Spot

Magnetic
Magetosphere
Polar accretion hot spots

Mass Transfer - not a simple process

Turbulence, friction, variation in secondary

CVs can tell us a lot!

Questions
Not much that isnt a question
Mechanisms for processes such as turbulence poorly
understood
Accretion disc physics
Magneto-hydrodynamics

A few major questions

What happens at the boundary layer of
magnetosphere?
How does the disc behave with different levels of mass
transfer?
Are there more long term behaviors?
How long do classes of CVs last?
How many distinct classes are there?
How important are variations in the secondary?

References
Hellier, C. 2001, Cataclysmic Variable Stars: How
and Why They Vary
Wood, J., et al. 1986, MNRAS, 219, 629
Hessman, F. V., et al. 1984, ApJ, 286, 747
Ritter and Kolb, 2005, Catalogue of Cataclysmic
Binaries, LMXBs, and related objects
Honeycutt, R. K., et al. 1998, PASP, 110, 676
Kube, J. G., et al. 2000, AAP, 356, 490
Martin Wood - astro.fit.edu (for the CV tree
diagram)