Disentangling Cataclysmic Variables in Gaia's HR-Diagram

2019/12/03 by J. Abril, Javier Abril, L. Schmidtobreick +9 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #FOS: Physical sciences #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.HE #astro-ph.SR

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1912.01531

5 pages, 12 figures

arxiv created 2019/12/03 · openalex publication_date 2019/12/03 · arxiv updated 2019/12/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Cataclysmic Variables (CVs) are interacting binaries consisting of at least three components that control their colour and magnitude. Using Gaia we here investigate the influence of the physical properties of these binaries on their position in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HR-diagram). The CVs are on average located between the main sequence and the white dwarf regime, the maximum density being at G_BP-G_RP ∼ 0.56 and G_abs ∼ 10.15. We find a trend of the orbital period with colour and absolute brightness: with decreasing period, the CVs become bluer and fainter. We also identify the location of the various CV sub-types in the HR-diagram and discuss the possible location of detached CVs, going through the orbital period gap.

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• Gaia's revolution in stellar variability

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