Astron. Astrophys. 322, 841-845 (1997)

The nature and applications of an irradiation ionization front in cataclysmic variables

Juntao Yuan and Zongyun Li

Department of Astronomy, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P.R.China (zyli@nju.edu.cn)

Received 18 June 1996 / Accepted 18 November 1996

Abstract

In order to explain the photometric oscillations of several minutes observed in CVs, A.R.King proposed a model based on the nature of IF on the irradiated surface of the secondary in 1989. Having carefully studied King's theory, we propose a revised version of King's theory in this paper and get some results quite different from King's. The upper limit of oscillation period is found to be much larger than and it can vary in a wide scope in real cases in stead of being strictly at . And our further calculations rule out the application of this mechanism to any disk-feed system including dwarf novae in outbursts.

Key words: accretion, accretion disks novae, cataclysmic variables stars: atmospheres

Send offprint requests to: Juntao Yuan

Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Motion of the ionization front
  • 2.1. Model
    • 2.1.1. The compression phase
    • 2.1.2. The expansion phase and the total time scale
  • 2.2. Estimation of
• 3. Discussions in a disk-feed system
  • 3.1. Outbursts of dwarf novae
  • 3.2. Other disk-feed systems
• 4. Conclusions
• Acknowledgements
• References

© European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1997

Online publication: June 5, 1998

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