Long-term Photometric Behavior of Outbursting AM CVn Systems

Abstract

The AM CVn systems are a class of He-rich, post-period minimum, semi-detached, ultra-compact binaries. Their long-term light curves have been poorly understood due to the few systems known and the long (hundreds of days) recurrence times between outbursts. We present combined photometric light curves from the LINEAR, CRTS, and PTF synoptic surveys to study the photometric variability of these systems over an almost 10 yr period. These light curves provide a much clearer picture of the outburst phenomena that these systems undergo. We characterize the photometric behavior of most known outbursting AM CVn systems and establish a relation between their outburst properties and the systems' orbital periods. We also explore why some systems have only shown a single outburst so far and expand the previously accepted phenomenological states of AM CVn systems. We conclude that the outbursts of these systems show evolution with respect to the orbital period, which can likely be attributed to the decreasing mass transfer rate with increasing period. Finally, we consider the number of AM CVn systems that should be present in modeled synoptic surveys.

22 pages, 13 figures, accepted to MNRAS

References in corpus (12)

• The Automated Palomar 60-Inch Telescope
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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Constraining the Physics of AM Canum Venaticorum Systems with the Accretion Disk Instability Model
• Exploratory Spectroscopy of Magnetic Cataclysmic Variables Candidates and Other Variable Objects
• Discovery of a high state AM CVn binary in the Galactic Bulge Survey
• The Superoutburst Duration versus Orbital Period Relation for AM CVn stars
• NSV 1440: First WZ Sge-type Object in AM CVn stars and candidates
• Orbital Period Increase in ES Ceti
• ASASSN-14cc: Likely Helium Analog of RZ Leonis Minoris
• A systematic study of spiral density waves in the accretion discs of Cataclysmic Variables
• The double helium-white dwarf channel for the formation of AM CVn binaries