No Arabic abstract
We present results from a study of TESS observations of the eclipsing dwarf nova system Z Cha, covering both an outburst and a superoutburst. We discover that Z Cha undergoes hysteretic loops in eclipse depth - out-of-eclipse flux space in both the outburst and the superoutburst. The direction that these loops are executed in indicates that the disk size increases during an outburst before the mass transfer rate through the disk increases, placing constraints on the physics behind the triggering of outbursts and superoutbursts. By fitting the signature of the superhump period in a flux-phase diagram, we find the rate at which this period decreases in this system during a superoutburst for the first time. We find that the superhumps in this source skip evolutionary stage A seen during most dwarf nova superoutbursts, even though this evolutionary stage has been seen during previous superoutbursts of the same object. Finally, O-C values of eclipses in our sample are used to calculate new ephemerides for the system, strengthening the case for a third body in Z Cha and placing new constraints on its orbit.
We explore the long-term evolution of mass-transferring white dwarf binaries undergoing both direct-impact and disk accretion and explore implications of such systems to gravitational wave astronomy. We cover a broad range of initial component masses and show that these systems, the majority of which lie within the LISA sensitivity range, exhibit prominent negative orbital frequency evolution (chirp) for a significant fraction of their lifetimes. Using a galactic population synthesis, we predict ~$2700$ double white dwarfs will be observable by LISA with negative chirps less than $-0.1 yr^{-2}$. We also show that detections of mass-transferring double white dwarf systems by LISA may provide astronomers with unique ways of probing the physics governing close compact object binaries.
The Zwicky Transient Facility has begun to discover binary systems with orbital periods that are less than 1,hr. Combined with dedicated follow-up systems, which allow for high-cadence photometry of these sources, systematic confirmation and characterization of these sources are now possible. Here, we report the discovery of ZTF J190125.42+530929.5, a 40.6,min orbital period, eclipsing double white-dwarf binary. Both photometric and spectroscopic modeling confirm its nature, yielding an estimated inclination of $i = 86.2^{+0.6}_{-0.2},rm degrees$ and primary and secondary effective temperatures of $textrm{T}_textrm{eff} = 28,000^{+500}_{-500},K$ and $textrm{T}_textrm{eff} = 17,600^{+400}_{-400},K$ respectively. This system adds to a growing list of sources for future gravitational-wave detectors and contributes to the demographic analysis of double degenerates.
This is a White Paper in support of the mission concept of the Large Observatory for X-ray Timing (LOFT), proposed as a medium-sized ESA mission. We discuss the potential of LOFT for the study of accreting white dwarfs. For a summary, we refer to the paper.
The results of the Gaia mission will have tremendous influence on many topics in white dwarf research. In this paper the current status of the Gaia mission is described. At the end a short outlook on the release scenario and the expected accuracy of the Gaia data is provided.
We present high precision, model independent, mass and radius measurements for 16 white dwarfs in detached eclipsing binaries and combine these with previously published data to test the theoretical white dwarf mass-radius relationship. We reach a mean precision of 2.4 per cent in mass and 2.7 per cent in radius, with our best measurements reaching a precision of 0.3 per cent in mass and 0.5 per cent in radius. We find excellent agreement between the measured and predicted radii across a wide range of masses and temperatures. We also find the radii of all white dwarfs with masses less than 0.48M$_odot$ to be fully consistent with helium core models, but they are on average 9 per cent larger than those of carbon-oxygen core models. In contrast, white dwarfs with masses larger than 0.52M$_odot$ all have radii consistent with carbon-oxygen core models. Moreover, we find that all but one of the white dwarfs in our sample have radii consistent with possessing thick surface hydrogen envelopes ($10^{-5} ge M_mathrm{H}/M_mathrm{WD} ge 10^{-4}$), implying that the surface hydrogen layers of these white dwarfs are not obviously affected by common envelope evolution.