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arXiv · 2310.20126

The optically thick rotating magnetic wind from a massive white dwarf merger product -- II. axisymmetric magnetohydrodynamic simulations

Abstract

We numerically construct a series of axisymmetric rotating magnetic wind solutions, aiming at exploring the observation properties of massive white dwarf (WD) merger remnants with a strong magnetic field, a fast spin, and an intense mass loss, as inferred for WD J005311. We investigate the magnetospheric structure and the resultant spin-down torque exerted to the merger remnant with respect to the surface magnetic flux $Φ_*$, spin angular frequency $Ω_*$ and the mass loss rate $\dot M$. We confirm that the wind properties for $σ\equiv Φ^2_* Ω_*^2/\dot M v_\mathrm{esc}^3 \gtrsim 1$ significantly deviate from those of the spherical Parker wind, where $v_\mathrm{esc}$ is the escape velocity at stellar surface. For such a rotating magnetic wind sequence, we find: (i) quasi-periodic mass eruption triggered by magnetic reconnection along with the equatorial plane (ii) a scaling relation for the spin-down torque $T \approx (1/2) \times \dot{M} Ω_* R^2_* σ^{1/4}$. We apply our results to discuss the spin-down evolution and wind anisotropy of massive WD merger remnants, the latter of which could be probed by a successive observation of WD J005311 using Chandra.

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Yici Zhong, Kazumi Kashiyama, Shinsuke Takasao, Toshikazu Shigeyama, Kotaro Fujisawa. 2023-10-31. The optically thick rotating magnetic wind from a massive white dwarf merger product -- II. axisymmetric magnetohydrodynamic simulations. https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.20126

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