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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
The mass loss from cataclysmic binaries seems an important and worth studying phenomenon for a number of reasons. It is probably enough to mention only two of them:
(a) Whenever we can directly observe the ejected material, determine its amount and the rate of mass loss, as well as its chemical composition (this being the case of the expanding envelopes of novae), we are getting a good insight into the basic physical mechanisms responsible for the observed phenomena.
(b) The mass loss (together with the mass transfer) and the loss of the orbital angular momentum are related directly to the dynamical evolution of a binary system and - indirectly - to the evolution of its components.