A Comparative Synthetic Spectral Analysis of the Low Resolution IUE Spectra of Two Dwarf Novae in Outburst: RX Andromeda and T Leonis

Session 79 - CVs and Novae.
Display session, Wednesday, January 17
North Banquet Hall, Convention Center

[79.12] A Comparative Synthetic Spectral Analysis of the Low Resolution IUE Spectra of Two Dwarf Novae in Outburst: RX Andromeda and T Leonis

K. Belle, Q. Nguyen, D. Fabian, M. Haung, E. M. Sion (Villanova U.)

The IUE archive contains numerous low resolution spectra of dwarf novae in outburst but relatively little synthetic spectral analyses of them using realistic accretion disk models. Therefore, with the codes TLUSTY, SYNSPEC and DISKSYN (Hubeny 1988, 1995) we have constructed a grid of optically thick accretion disk models for white dwarf masses 0.6 and 1.0 M_ødot, accretion rates -11 \leq \log \dotM (M_ødot/yr) \leq -7, and for disk inclination angles of 40\deg and 80\deg. As a pilot application of our grid of models to the archival IUE spectra, we have selected two dwarf novae, one above the period gap, RX Andromeda, and one below the period gap, T Leo. We present the results of our detailed synthetic disk spectral fitting to these two systems and compare their accretion rates and disk parameters. This work has been supported by NASA LTSA grant NAGW-3726 and by a summer research grant from the NASA Delaware Space Grant Colleges Consortium.

Program listing for Wednesday