On the Rapid Spin-down and Low Luminosity Pulsed Emission from AE Aquarii

Abstract

AE Aqr is an unusual close binary system with a very short white dwarf spin period, a high spin-down rate, a relatively low quiescent luminosity, and clear pulse signals. The exact nature of the large spin-down power has not been well explained mainly due to the fact that the observed luminosities in various energy ranges are much lower than the spin-down power. We consider an unconventional picture of AE Aqr in which an accreting white dwarf, modeled as a magnetic dipole whose axis is misaligned with the spin axis, is rapidly spun-down via gravitational radiation emission and therefore the spin-down power is not directly connected to any observable electromagnetic emission.

25 pages and one PS figure, Submitted to ApJ

References in corpus (1)

• A Study of the X-Ray Emission of Magnetic Cataclysmic Variable Ae Aquarii

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Rapid Oscillations in Cataclysmic Variables
• On the mass transfer in AE Aquarii
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• A Flare of AE Aquarii Observed with XMM-Newton
• Can the 33s pulsations observed from AE Aquarii be explained in terms of accretion onto the white dwarf surface?
• Comparisons of MHD Propeller Model with Observations of Cataclysmic Variable AE Aqr
• Simultaneous UBVRI observations of the cataclysmic variable AE Aquarii: temperature and mass of fireballs
• Can the rapid braking of the white dwarf in AE Aquarii be explained in terms of the gravitational wave emitter mechanism?
• The X-ray Pulse Profile of BG CMi