Modelling the Spectral Signatures of Accretion Disk Winds in Cataclysmic Variables

Abstract

Bipolar outflows are known to be present in many disk-accreting astrophysical systems. In disk-dominated cataclysmic variables, these outflows are responsible for most of the features in UV and FUV spectra. However, there have been very few attempts to model the features that appear in the spectra of disk-accreting cataclysmic variables quantitatively. The modelling that has been attempted has been concentrated almost entirely on explaining the shape of C IV. Here we describe a new hybrid Monte Carlo/Sobolev code that allows a synthesis of the complete UV spectrum of a disk-dominated cataclysmic variable. A large range of azimuthally-symmetric wind geometries can be modelled. Changes in line shape in eclipsing systems can also be studied. Features in the synthesized spectra include not only well-known resonance lines of O VI, NV, Si IV, and C IV, but, with an appropriate choice of mass loss rate and wind geometry, many of the lines originating from excited lower states that are observed in HUT, FUSE, and ORFEUS spectra. The line profiles of C IV resemble those calculated by previous workers, when an identical geometry is assumed. We compare the synthesized spectra to HUT spectrum of Z Cam, showing that in this case a reasonably good ``fit'' to the spectrum can be obtained.