Discovery of a Sirius-like binary system with a very strongly magnetic white dwarf. Binarity among magnetic white dwarfs

Abstract

Binary systems containing a magnetic white dwarf and a main-sequence star are considered extremely rare, perhaps non-existent. In the course of a search of magnetic fields in high-mass white dwarfs we have discovered a Sirius-like wide binary system composed of a main-sequence G0 star and a $M\sim 1.1M_{\odot }$ white dwarf with a huge (hundreds of MG) magnetic field. This star, WDS J03038+0608B, shows a circular polarisation amplitude of 5% in the continuum, with no evidence of variability in a 1d time-scale, little or no linear polarisation in the blue part of the spectrum, and about 2% linear polarisation in the red part of the optical spectrum. A search in the literature reveals the existence of at least four more binary systems that include a magnetic white dwarf and a non-degenerate companion - three such systems passed unremarked in previous studies. We estimate that up to a few percent of magnetic white dwarfs may be found to occur in wide binary pairs. However, at least four of the five known binary systems with a magnetic white dwarf are too widely separated to be expected to evolve into systems experiencing Roche lobe overflow, and cannot be considered as progenitors of magnetic cataclysmic variable (AM Her and DQ Her) systems.

Accepted by A&A Letters

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