Cataclysmic Variables and Low-Mass X-Ray Binaries

Since 1976 a meeting devoted to recent research on cataclysmic variables ("CV workshop") has been held annually somewhere in North America. Many of the meetings have been held - following a custom older than anyone reading this book - in locations with well-known recreational potential (e. g. Santa Cruz, CA; Boulder, CO). We thought hard about this custom while contemplating the possibility of organi­ zing a meeting in Massachusetts in the middle of winter. Nobody wants their meeting to go down in history as the smallest and dullest, and it ~ surely be the coldest. But on occasion, meeting organizers have defied custom and scheduled meetings for less~than-trendy places, and gotten away with it (Ur·bana, IL and Rochester, NY must be reckoned as examples of this). Encouraged by the spatial and temporal proximity of the American Astronomical Society meeting (Boston, January 9-12), we thought we might get away with it again, and so came to organize a meeting for January 12-15, 1983, in Cambridge, MA. There was another reason for a meeting at this time and place, we loftily proclaimed in early mailings. No one doubts that the CV's are closely related to the low-mass X-ray binaries ("LMXB' s"), in which the accreting star is usually, or perhaps always, more compact than a white dwarf. Many of the general characteristics of LMXB's sound pretty familiar to any student of CV's: orbital periods in the range 0.

Inhalt

I. Evolution of Compact Binaries.- Evolution of Cataclysmic Binaries.- Pre-Cataclysmic Binaries.- Abell 41, A Cataclysmic Variable Progenitor.- The Breakdown of Nuclear Quasi-Equilibrium in Highly Compact Binaries.- A Systematic Study of Magnetic Braking in Low-Mass Binaries.- Magnetic Braking and the Origin and Evolution of Close Low-Mass Binaries.- On The Evolutionary Status of Bright, Low-Mass X-Ray Sources.- II. Low-Mass X-Ray Binaries.- Low-Mass X-Ray Binaries.- Galactic Bulge X-Ray Burst Sources From Distrupted Globular Clusters?.- General Discussion: On Low-Mass X-Ray Binaries.- X-Ray Luminous White Dwarf Binaries in Globular Clusters.- Three-Body Interactions and Cataclysmic Binaries in Globular Clusters.- The Evolution of Highly Compact Binaries in Globular Clusters.- General Discussion: On Binary Evolution in Globular Clusters.- Radiation Transfer in Accretion Disk Coronae.- Hydrodynamic Simulations of a Combined Hydrogen, Helium Thermonuclear Runaway on a 10 km Neutron Star.- Quasi-Periodic Oscillations in Galactic Bulge Sources Observed by Hakucho.- The Mass Transfer Rate in X1916-053: Is It Driven by Gravitational Radiation?.- Cos-B X-Ray Observations of Cygnus X-3.- III. Am Herculis and DQ Herculis-Stars.- The AM Herculis Magnetic Variables.- Recent Developments in the Theory of AM Her and DQ Her Stars.- CW 1103+254: The AM Her Object That Has Everything.- General Discussion: On AM Herculis Stars.- AM Herculis: An Outburst at 4.9 GHz.- Synchronization of Magnetic White Dwarfs in Close Binary Systems.- Orientations of AM Her Stars from Their Polarization Properties: The Case of the Missing AM Her Stars.- Time Dependent Accretion Flows in the AM Her Systems.- Stability of Radiative Shock Waves.- General Discussion: On Shock Wave Instabilities.- Intermediate Polars.- General Discussion: On DQ Her Stars.- A Comparison of H2252-035/AO PSC and 4U1849-31/V1223 SGR.- IV. Novae and Dwarf Novae.- Ultra-Violet Radiation from Dwarf Nova Discs.- On the Nature of Dwarf Novae.- Dwarf Novae Eruptions.- Accretion Instability Models for Dwarf Novae and X-Ray Transients.- Dwarf Novae - A Hot Dam Instability.- General Discussion: On Dwarf Novae Eruptions.- First Detection of Radio Emission From a Dwarf Nova.- Photoionization Models for the Wind From TW Vir.- Orbital Periods of Novae Before Eruption.- Cataclysmic Variables as Probes of X-Ray Properties of Interstellar Grains.- On Measuring the Radial Velocity of White Dwarfs in Cataclysmic Binaries.- V. Accretion Disks.- Accretion Discs.- The Cataclysmic Variable GD552.- A Summary of the UV, Optical and IR Properties of Disks in CV's.- White Dwarf/Accretion Disk Interactions: Instabilities of Infinite, Differentially Rotating Cylinders.- Boundary Layers and Coronae in Cataclysmic Variables.- Accretion Disks in Symbiotic Stars and Their Relationship to Cataclysmic Binaries.- Accretion Disks.- Distances, Accretion Rates, and Space Densities of Cataclysmic Variables: Piece O' Cake, and Other Heresies.- Author Index.- Star Index.