Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T11:16:53.728Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Extension of the Radio Spectrum of AE Aqr to the Sub-millimetric Range

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Meil Abada-Simon ,
Tim S. Bastian ,
Jay A. Bookbinder ,
Monique Aubier ,
Gordon Bromage ,
George A. Dulk  and
Alain Lecacheux
Meil Abada-Simon
Affiliation:
Sterrekundig Instituut, Postbus 80000, 3508 TA Utrecht, The Netherlands Observatoire de Paris, 92190 Meudon, France
Tim S. Bastian
Affiliation:
National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, NM 87801, USA
Jay A. Bookbinder
Affiliation:
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02 138, USA
Monique Aubier
Affiliation:
Observatoire de Paris, 92190 Meudon, France Université Paris6, France
Gordon Bromage
Affiliation:
Lancashire Polytechnic, Physics Department, Preston, PR1 6AD, UK
George A. Dulk
Affiliation:
Observatoire de Paris, 92190 Meudon, France
Alain Lecacheux
Affiliation:
Observatoire de Paris, 92190 Meudon, France

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

AE Aquarii is a magnetic cataclysmic variable containing a white dwarf and a K3-K7 star which lies slightly above the main sequence. The white dwarf is the most rapidly rotating known (Prot ≃ 33.08 s, Patterson 1979), and it is the most strongly asynchronous with its revolution (Porb = 9.88 hr). The white dwarf accretes matter from the K star, which approximately fills the Roche lobe. AE Aqr exhibits flares in the soft X-rays, the ultra-violet, and almost continuously in the visible and the radio regimes. Rapid optical and TeV γ-ray bursts have also been discovered, which are modulated with the period of the white dwarf and at half of this period (de Jager & Meintjes 1993). This modulation, also found in X-rays, is interpreted as the accretion of matter onto the white dwarf’s magnetic poles. The strength of the white dwarf’s magnetic field is not well-determined, it is estimated to be ∼ 6.104 - 105 G (Lamb & Patterson 1983, Cropper 1986) at the white dwarf’s surface. Eracleous et al. (1994) recently suggested that the magnetic dipole axis lies close to the equatorial plane (∼ 20°). De Jager et al. (1994) discovered a rapid spin down of the white dwarf leading to a spin down power which exceeds the accretion power. They suggest that a significant fraction of the spin down power may be converted to the acceleration of particles, which may explain the radio and the γ-ray emissions. Both the characteristics of the optical flares and the existence of TeV γ-rays suggest a relation with the non-thermal radio flares.

Type
Cataclysmic Variables: Eruptions and Flickering
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 151: Flares and Flashes , 1995 , pp. 268 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © Springer-Verlag 1995

References

Abada-Simon, M., Lecacheux, A., Bastian, T.S., Bookbinder, J.A., Dulk, G.A., 1993, ApJ 403, 692 Google Scholar
Altenhoff, W.J., Thum, C., Wendker, H.J. 1994, A&A 281, 161 Google Scholar
Bastian, T.S., Dulk, G.A., Chanmugan, G. 1988, ApJ 234, 431 Google Scholar
Bookbinder, J.A., Lamb, D.Q., 1987, ApJ 323, L131 Google Scholar
Cropper, M., 1986, MNRAS 222, 225 Google Scholar
Eracleous, M., Horne, K., Robinson, E.L., Zhang, E.-H., Marsh, T.R., Wood, J.H., 1994, ApJ 433, 313 Google Scholar
De Jager, O.C., Meintjes, P.J., 1993, A&A 268, L1 Google Scholar
De Jager, O.C., Meintjes, P.J., O’Donoghue, D., Robinson, E.L., 1994, MNRAS 267, 577 Google Scholar
Lamb, D.Q., Patterson, J., 1983, in Cataclysmic Variables and related Objects, Livio, M. & Shaviv, G. (eds.), Reidel, Dordrecht, p. 229 Google Scholar
Patterson, J., 1979, ApJ 234, 978 Google Scholar