Signs of accretion in the white dwarf + brown dwarf binary NLTT5306
Abstract
We present new XSHOOTER spectra of NLTT5306, a 0.44 0.04\msun white dwarf in a short period (101\,min) binary system with a brown dwarf companion that is likely to have previously undergone common envelope evolution. We have confirmed the presence of H emission and discovered Na I absorption associated with the white dwarf. These observations are indicative of accretion. Accretion is typically evidenced by high energy emission in the UV and X-ray regime. However our \textit{Swift} observations covering the full orbital period in three wavebands (uvw1, uvm2, uvw2) revealed no UV excess or modulation. We used the X-ray non-detection to put an upper limit on the accretion rate of 210\msun yr. We compare NLTT5306 to similar accreting binaries with brown dwarf donors and suggest the inferred accretion rate could be from wind accretion or accretion from a debris/dust disk. The lack of evidence for a disk implies NLTT5306 is magnetically funnelling a weak wind from a potentially low gravity brown dwarf. The upper limit on the accretion rate suggests a magnetic field as low as 0.45\,kG would be sufficient to achieve this. If confirmed this would constitute the first detection of a brown dwarf wind and could provide useful constraints on mass loss rates.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1901.05485,
title = {Signs of accretion in the white dwarf + brown dwarf binary NLTT5306},
author = {E. S. Longstaff and S. L. Casewell and G. A. Wynn and K. L. Page and P. K. G. Williams and I. Braker and P. F. L. Maxted},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1901.05485},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
10 pages, 5 figures