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Register a new userA highly magnetised and rapidly rotating white dwarf as small as the Moon
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White dwarfs represent the last stage of evolution of stars with mass less than about eight times that of the Sun and, like other stars, are often found in binaries. If the orbital period of the binary is short enough, energy losses from gravitational-wave radiation can shrink the orbit until the two white dwarfs come into contact and merge. Depending on the component masses, the merger can lead to a supernova of type Ia or result in a massive white dwarf. In the latter case, the white dwarf remnant is expected to be highly magnetised because of the strong magnetic dynamo that should arise during the merger, and be rapidly spinning from the conservation of the orbital angular momentum. Here we report observations of a white dwarf, ZTF J190132.9+145808.7, that exhibits these properties, but to an extreme: a rotation period of 6.94 minutes, a magnetic field ranging between 600 megagauss and 900 megagauss over its surface, and a stellar radius of about 2,100 km, slightly larger than the radius of the Moon. Such a small radius implies that the stars mass is close to the maximum white-dwarf mass, or Chandrasekhar mass. ZTF J190132.9+145808.7 is likely to be cooling through the Urca processes (neutrino emission from electron capture on sodium) because of the high densities reached in its core.
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We investigate the evolution of isolated, zero and finite temperature, massive, uniformly rotating and highly magnetized white dwarf stars under angular momentum loss driven by magnetic dipole braking. We consider the structure and thermal evolution of white dwarf isothermal cores taking also into account the nuclear burning and neutrino emission processes. We estimate the white dwarf lifetime before it reaches the condition either for a type Ia supernova explosion or for the gravitational collapse to a neutron star. We study white dwarfs with surface magnetic fields from $10^6$ to $10^{9}$~G and masses from $1.39$ to $1.46~M_odot$ and analyze the behavior of the white dwarf parameters such as moment of inertia, angular momentum, central temperature and magnetic field intensity as a function of lifetime. The magnetic field is involved only to slow down white dwarfs, without affecting their equation of state and structure. In addition, we compute the characteristic time of nuclear reactions and dynamical time scale. The astrophysical consequences of the results are discussed.
WD J005311 is a newly identified white dwarf (WD) in a mid-infrared nebula. The spectroscopic observation indicates the existence of a neon-enriched carbon/oxygen wind with a terminal velocity of $v_{infty,rm obs}sim 16,000,rm km,s^{-1}$ and a mass loss rate of $dot M_{rm obs}sim 3.5times 10^{-6},M_odot$ yr$^{-1}$. Here we consistently explain the properties of WD J005311 using a newly constructed wind solution, where the optically thick outflow is launched from the carbon burning shell on an oxygen-neon core and accelerated by the rotating magnetic field to become supersonic and unbound well below the photosphere. Our model implies that WD J005311 has a mass of $M_* sim 1.1mbox{-}1.3,M_odot$, a magnetic field of $B_* sim (2mbox{-}5)times 10^7,rm G$, and a spin angular frequency of $Omega sim 0.2mbox{-}0.5 ,rm s^{-1}$. The large magnetic field and fast spin support the carbon-oxygen WD merger origin. WD J005311 will neither explode as a type Ia supernova nor collapse into a neutron star. If the wind continues to blow another few kyr, WD J005311 will spin down significantly and join to the known sequence of slowly-rotating magnetic WDs. Otherwise it may appear as a fast-spinning magnetic WD and could be a new high energy source.
AE Aquarii is a cataclysmic variable with the fastest known rotating magnetized white dwarf (P_spin = 33.08 s). Compared to many intermediate polars, AE Aquarii shows a soft X-ray spectrum with a very low luminosity (L_X ~ 10^{31} erg/s). We have analyzed overlapping observations of this system with the NuSTAR and the Swift X-ray observatories in September of 2012. We find the 0.5-30 keV spectra to be well fitted by either an optically thin thermal plasma model with three temperatures of 0.75 +0.18 -0.45, 2.29 +0.96 -0.82, and 9.33 +6.07 -2.18 keV, or an optically thin thermal plasma model with two temperatures of 1.00 +0.34 -0.23 and 4.64 +1.58 -0.84 keV plus a power-law component with photon index of 2.50 +0.17 -0.23. The pulse profile in the 3-20 keV band is broad and approximately sinusoidal, with a pulsed fraction of 16.6 +/- 2.3%. We do not find any evidence for a previously reported sharp feature in the pulse profile.
We have examined the optical/X-ray light curves of seven well-observed recurrent novae, V745 Sco, M31N 2008-12a, LMC N 1968, U Sco, RS Oph, LMC N 2009a, T Pyx, and one recurrent nova candidate LMC N 2012a. Six novae out of the eight show a simple relation that the duration of supersoft X-ray source (SSS) phase is 0.70 times the total duration of the outburst ($=$ X-ray turnoff time), i.e., $t_{rm SSS}=0.70 t_{rm off}$, the total duration of which ranges from 10 days to 260 days. These six recurrent novae show a broad rectangular X-ray light curve shape, first half a period of which is highly variable in the X-ray count rate. The SSS phase corresponds also to an optical plateau phase that indicates a large accretion disk irradiated by a hydrogen-burning WD. The other two recurrent novae, T Pyx and V745 Sco, show a narrow triangular shape of X-ray light curve without an optical plateau phase. Their relations between $t_{rm SSS}$ and $t_{rm off}$ are rather different from the above six recurrent novae. We also present theoretical SSS durations for recurrent novae with various WD masses and stellar metallicities ($Z=$0.004, 0.01, 0.02, and 0.05) and compare with observed durations of these recurrent novae. We show that the SSS duration is a good indicator of the WD mass in the recurrent novae with a broad rectangular X-ray light curve shape.
We present optical photometry of the cataclysmic variable LAMOST J024048.51+195226.9 taken with the high-speed, five-band CCD camera HiPERCAM on the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). We detect pulsations originating from the spin of its white dwarf, finding a spin period of 24.9328(38)s. The pulse amplitude is of the order of 0.2% in the g-band, below the detection limits of previous searches. This detection establishes LAMOST J024048.51+195226.9 as only the second white dwarf magnetic propeller system, a twin of its long-known predecessor, AE Aquarii. At 24.93s, the white dwarf in LAMOST J024048.51+195226.9 has the shortest known spin period of any cataclysmic variable star. The white dwarf must have a mass of at least 0.7MSun to sustain so short a period. The observed faintest u-band magnitude sets an upper limit on the white dwarfs temperature of ~25000K. The pulsation amplitudes measured in the five HiPERCAM filters are consistent with an accretion spot of ~30000K covering ~2% of the white dwarfs visible area, although much hotter and smaller spots cannot be ruled out.
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