Seismology of Rapidly Rotating Accreting White Dwarfs

TL;DR

This paper investigates the internal structure and rapid rotation of accreting white dwarfs through non-perturbative seismology, revealing how accretion and spin influence their oscillation modes and surface brightness.

Contribution

It introduces a non-perturbative method to calculate oscillation modes in rapidly rotating accreting white dwarfs, accounting for their unique thermal and rotational properties.

Findings

Observed pulsations match the three lowest azimuthal order modes.

Surface brightness distributions are significantly altered by rotation.

High mode frequencies are shifted to lower frequencies by rotation effects.

Abstract

A number of White Dwarfs (WDs) in cataclysmic binaries have shown brightness variations consistent with non-radial oscillations as observed in isolated WDs. A few objects have been well-characterized with photometric campaigns in the hopes of gleaning information about the mass, spin, and possibly internal structural characteristics. The novel aspect of this work is the possiblity to measure or constrain the interior structure and spin rate of WDs which have spent gigayears accreting material from their companion, undergoing thousands of nova outbursts in the process. In addition, variations in the surface temperature affect the site of mode driving, and provide unique and challenging tests for mode driving theories previously applied to isolated WD's. Having undergone long-term accretion, these WDs are expected to have been spun up. Spin periods in the range 60-100 seconds have been measured by other means for two objects, GW Lib and V455 And. Compared to typical mode frequencies, the spin frequency may be similar or higher, and the Coriolis force can no longer be treated as a small perturbation on the fluid motions. We present the results of a non-perturbative calculation of the normal modes of these WDs, using interior thermal structures appropriate to accreting systems. This includes a discussion of the surface brightness distributions, which are strongly modified from the non-rotating case. Using the measured spin period of approximately 100 seconds, we show that the observed pulsations from GW Lib are consistent with the three lowest azimuthal order rotationally modified modes that have the highest frequency in the stellar frame. The high frequencies are needed for the convective driving, but are then apparently shifted to lower frequencies by a combination of their pattern motion and the WD rotation.