Update on HST Campaign on Pulsating White Dwarfs in Cataclysmic Variables (Abstract)

Volume 37 number 2 (2009)

Paula Szkody

Abstract

(Abstract only) For the past six years, we have conducted programs on the Hubble Space Telescope, coordinated with ground support from the AAVSO network of observers. These programs have determined temperatures for nine of the dozen known pulsating white dwarfs that exist in cataclysmic variables. Unlike single, non-accreting, white dwarfs, which have a very narrow range of temperatures within their instability strip, the accreting pulsators range from 10,500K to 16,500K with most being near the hot end. In addition, the accreting pulsators are found to stop showing pulsations at times, a phenomenon not seen in the single white dwarfs. The superoutbursts of two of our systems in 2007 complicates the picture further but allows the chance to study the effect of temperature changes on a relatively short timescale.