SU Lyn: diagnosing the boundary layer with UV and hard X-ray data

TL;DR

This study analyzes SU Lyn, a purely accretion-powered symbiotic star, using X-ray and UV data to understand boundary layer properties and accretion rate variations, revealing changes in optical thickness and placing a lower limit on the white dwarf mass.

Contribution

First reliable X-ray spectroscopy of SU Lyn demonstrates the boundary layer's properties and its response to accretion rate changes, providing new insights into symbiotic star accretion physics.

Findings

SU Lyn exhibits hard, thermal X-ray emission affected by local absorption.

The X-ray spectrum indicates a plasma temperature around 21 keV.

A significant drop in accretion rate was observed between 2015 and 2016.

Abstract

Symbiotic stars in which the symbiotic phenomenon is powered solely by accretion, often at an average rate that is higher than in cataclysmic variable stars, provide an important opportunity to diagnose boundary layers around disk-accreting white dwarfs. Here we investigate SU Lyncis, a recently discovered example of a purely accretion-powered symbiotic star, using the first reliable X-ray spectroscopy, obtained with NuSTAR, and UV photometry obtained with Swift. SU Lyn has hard, thermal, X-ray emission that is strongly affected by a variable local absorber - that has little impact on the UV emission. Its X-ray spectrum is described well using a plasma cooling from $k$T $\approx$ 21 keV, with a 3 to 30 keV luminosity of approximately 4.9$\times$10$^{32}$ ergs s$^{-1}$. The spectrum is also consistent with the presence of reflection with an amplitude of 1.0, although in that case, the best-fit plasma temperature is 20-25% lower. The UV to X-ray luminosity ratio of SU Lyn changed significantly between 2015 and 2016. We interpret this as a consequence of a drop by almost 90% in the accretion rate. Whereas the UV luminosity of the disk responded linearly, the luminosity of the optically thin (hard X-ray) emission from the boundary layer remained roughly constant because the boundary layer changed from partially optically thick to almost completely optically thin. Under this interpretation, we place a lower limit on the white dwarf mass of 0.7 M$_{\odot}$ (0.8 M$_{\odot}$ if we neglect reflection).