2010/02/18 by Trisha Mizusawa, J. Merritt, Jason Merritt +9 · 12 citations
Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Brightness #Cataclysmic variable star #Chemistry #Dwarf nova #Flux (metallurgy) #Intermediate polar #Nova (rocket) #Physics #Spectral line #Stars #White dwarf #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/651436
published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 122(889), 299-308 (Institute of Physics) · ApJ, accepted
openalex publication_date 2010/02/18 · arxiv created 2010/07/20 · arxiv updated 2015/05/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present the results of a multicomponent synthetic spectral analysis of the archival far ultraviolet spectra of several key nova-like variables including members of the SW Sex, RW Tri, UX UMa, and VY Scl subclasses: KR Aur, RW Tri, V825 Her, V795 Her, BP Lyn, V425 Cas, and HL Aqr. Accretion rates as well as the possible flux contribution of the accreting white dwarf are included in our analysis. Except for RW Tri, which has a reliable trigonometric parallax, we computed the distances to the nova-like systems using the method of Knigge. Our analysis of seven archival IUE spectra of RW Tri at its parallax distance of 341 pc consistently indicates a low mass (∼0.4 M ⊙ ) white dwarf and an average accretion rate, . For KR Aur, we estimate that the white dwarf has T eff = 29,000 ± 2000 K, log g = 8.4, and contributes 18% of the far-UV flux, while an accretion disk with accretion rate at an inclination of 41° contributes the remainder. We find that an accretion disk dominates the far-UV spectrum of V425 Cas but a white dwarf contributes nonnegligibly with approximately 18% of the far-UV flux. For the two high state nova-likes, HL Aqr and V825 Her, their accretion disks totally dominate with and 3 × 10 -9 M ⊙ yr -1 , respectively. For BP Lyn we find while for V795 Her, we find an accretion rate of . We discuss the implications of our results for the evolutionary status of nova-like variables.