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Periodic Changes of the Accretion Geometry in the Nearly-Synchronous Polar RX J1940.1–1025

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Ralf D. Geckeler  and
Rüdiger Staubert
Ralf D. Geckeler
Affiliation:
Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Astronomie, Universität Tübingen, Waldhäuserstr. 64, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany
Rüdiger Staubert
Affiliation:
Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Astronomie, Universität Tübingen, Waldhäuserstr. 64, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany

Abstract

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RX J1940.1-1025 is a newly discovered magnetic Cataclysmic Variable and one of only three known polars with a slightly non-synchronous (< 3 %) rotation of the white dwarf primary. The accretion geometry between the infalling accretion stream and the magnetic field of the WD thus changes periodically with the beat period of 50.0 d between the orbital and the spin period of the WD. The accretion thus occurs along different field lines, depending on the beat phase.

For the first time we have observed this effect as a periodic shift in the timings of the absorption troughs in the optical and X-ray pulse profiles of RX J1940.1-1025 with phase of the beat period. There is evidence for a secular decrease of the spin period of RX J1940.1-1025 with a synchronization time scale of the order of 102 y.

Type
Part 15. Poster Papers
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 163: Accretion Phenomena and Related Outflows , 1997 , pp. 707 - 708
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 1997

References

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