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K.Byckling, J. Osborne, G. Wynn, A. Beardmore, V. Braito (UoL), K. Mukai (NASA/GSFC), R. West (UoL) March 15-19, 2009 Wild stars in the Old West Tucson, Arizona
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Motivation X-ray behaviour during DNe outburst is not well- understood The two well-studied systems, SS Cyg and U Gem, behave differently Need to observe more systems
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GW Lib in a nutshell! Discovered in 1983 through its first outburst (OB) as a 9 th magnitude star First CV with non-radial WD pulsations in quiescence ( Warner & van Zyl 1998, van Zyl et al. 2000 ) WDs in CVs were thought to be too hot to be in the DAV instability strip Classified as a WZ Sge type DN: low mass accretion rates in quiescence & long recurrence times XMM observations of GW Lib confirmed that the max temperature and the quiescent luminosity are low kT_max = 5 keV, L = 9 x 10^28 erg/s (Hilton et al. 2007)
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The Great Superoutburst in 2007 Second OB took place in April 2007 lasting ~26 days the gap between the outbursts 24 yrs! AAVSO observers and Swift observed the second outburst in the optical, UV (UVOT) and X-rays (XRT) To date, only two other systems have simultaneous multiwavelength outburst lightcurves: SS Cyg and U Gem These have longer orbital periods than GW Lib: SS Cyg 6.6 h, U Gem 4.2 h, GW Lib 77 min Simultaneous multiwavelength data of the outbursts of SS Cyg and U Gem provide a basis to compare the outburst behaviour
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The most striking difference in X-rays! Assumption: X-rays rise in the beginning not seen in GW Lib X-rays decline in ~10 d in GW Lib (cf. SS Cyg ~less than 3 hrs) The X-ray re-brightening seen at the end in SS Cyg is not clear in GW Lib and U Gem GW Lib (Byckling et al. (in prep.)) SS Cyg (Wheatley, Mauche, & Mattei 2003) U Gem (Mattei, Mauche, & Wheatley 2000) Swift UVOT 2200-4000 Å AAVSO Swift XRT 0.3-10 keV 72-130 Å 2-15 keV 72-130 Å 26 d 10 d15 d ? ?
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The X-ray spectra S1 S2 S3 S5 S4 S1 S2 S4 S5 wabs Nh (x 10^20 cm^-2) Temperatures S1: S4: kT_bb = keV S2: S5: Max. mekal T of S1 ~6 keV. S3: Abundance: S3
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X-ray hardness ratio Soft 0.3-1.0 keV Hard 1.0-10 keV Hard/Soft X-ray luminosity: The black body luminosity not well-constrained In 0.3-10 keV peak luminosity L = 2.1 x 10^32 erg/s ( Ṁ = 1.7 x 10^15 g/s) At the end of the OB L = 4.7 x 10^30 erg/s ( Ṁ = 3.9 x 10^13 g/s) No periods seen in the X-ray data
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Disc models Why is the recurrence time much longer than other DNe? Why do we only see superoutbursts? Look for solution from the models for WZ Sge: Low disc viscosity in quiescence (Smak 1993) Evaporation of the inner disc combined with low viscosity (Meyer-Hofmeister et al. 1998) Truncation of the inner disc by a magnetic WD with standard viscosity (Warner, Livio, & Tout 1996; Matthews et al. 2007)
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Conclusions The X-ray behaviour is not consistent with that of SS Cyg The UV and optical outburst lightcurves are more closely related in structure and shape than UV and X-rays similar emission region? (cooler part of the disc away from the boundary layer) A black body tail seen in the first outburst spectrum boundary layer luminosity? Long recurrence time (decades) and the lack of normal OBs suggest the disc in GW Lib is truncated or the disc viscosity is ~100 times lower than in other CVs
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Credit: A. Beardmore
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KB acknowledges funding from the European Commission under the Marie Curie Host Fellowship for Early Stage Research Training Spartan, University of Leicester, UK. Acknowledgments
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