Linda Schmidtobreick, Pablo Rodriguez-Gil, Boris T. Gaensicke
All eclipsing nova-likes in the 2.8-4h orbital period range belong to the
group of SW Sex stars, and as such experience very high mass transfer rates.
Since the physical properties of a star should be independent of the
inclination it is observed at, this suggests that all or at least a large
fraction of the non- or weakly-magnetic cataclysmic variables in this period
range are physically SW Sex stars.
We here present preliminary results of a large campaign to search for SW Sex
characteristic features in the spectra of such stars. We find that 14 out of
the 18 observed non-eclipsing cataclysmic variables belong to the group of SW
Sex stars the classification of the other four is uncertain from our data. This
confirms the domination of SW Sex stars in the period range of 2.8-4 h just
above the period gap. Since all long-period systems need to cross this range
before entering the gap, the SW Sex phenomenon is likely to be an evolutionary
stage in the life of a cataclysmic variable.
View original:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.6678
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