Getting to know the cataclysmic variable beneath the nova eruption
Abstract
The eruption of a (classical) nova is widely accepted to be a recurrent event in the lifetime of a cataclysmic binary star. In-between eruptions the system should therefore behave as a "normal" cataclysmic variable (CV), i.e. according to its characteristic properties like the mass-transfer rate or the strength of the magnetic field of the white dwarf. How important are these characteristics for the nova eruption itself, i.e. which type of systems preferably undergo a nova eruption? This question could in principle be addressed by comparing the post-nova systems with the general CV population. However, information on post-novae is scarce, even to the extent that the identification of the post-nova is ambiguous in most cases. In this paper we inform on the progress of a project that has been undertaken to significantly improve the number of confirmed post-novae, thus ultimately providing the means for a better understanding of these objects.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1211.1563,
title = {Getting to know the cataclysmic variable beneath the nova eruption},
author = {C. Tappert and L. Schmidtobreick and A. Ederoclite and N. Vogt},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1211.1563},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
6 pages, 2 figures; proceedings of a poster presented at the international conference on "The Most Mysterious Binaries: Significance for Astrophysics", 2 - 6 July 2012, Hvar, Croatia; to be published in the Central European Astrophysical Bulletin