Cataclysmic Variables
"Cataclysmic variables (CVs) are close binary systems consisting of a white dwarf and a red-dwarf secondary transferring matter via the Roche lobe overflow." Both fusion- and accretion-powered cataclysmic variables have been observed to be X-ray sources. The accretion disk may be prone to instability leading to dwarf nova outbursts: a portion of the disk material falls onto the white dwarf, the cataclysmic outbursts occur when the density and temperature at the bottom of the accumulated hydrogen layer rise high enough to ignite nuclear fusion reactions, which rapidly burn the hydrogen layer to helium.
Apparently the only SSXS nonmagnetic cataclysmic variable is V Sge: bolometric luminosity of (1 - 10) x 1037, a binary including a blackbody (BB) accretor at T < 80 eV, and an orbital period of 0.514195 d.
The accretion disk can become thermally stable in systems with high mass-transfer rates (Ṁ). Such systems are called nova-like (NL) stars, because they lack outbursts characteristic of dwarf novae.
Read more about this topic: Super Soft X-ray Source
Famous quotes containing the word variables:
“The variables are surprisingly few.... One can whip or be whipped; one can eat excrement or quaff urine; mouth and private part can be meet in this or that commerce. After which there is the gray of morning and the sour knowledge that things have remained fairly generally the same since man first met goat and woman.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)