Hubble Space Telescope Spectra of GW Librae: A Hot Pulsating White Dwarf in a Cataclysmic Variable

Abstract

We have obtained Hubble Space Telescope UV spectra of the white dwarf in GW Lib, the only known nonradially pulsating white dwarf in a cataclysmic variable and the first known DAZQ variable. The UV light curve reveals large-amplitude (10%) pulsations in the UV with the same periods (646, 376, and 237 s) as those seen at optical wavelengths, but the mean spectrum fits with an average white dwarf temperature (14,700 K for a 0.6 M_solar white dwarf) that is too hot to be in the normal instability strip for ZZ Ceti stars. A better fit is achieved with a dual-temperature model (with 63% of the white dwarf surface at a temperature of 13,300 K and 37% at 17,100 K) and a higher mass (0.8 M_solar) white dwarf with 0.1 solar metal abundance. Since the blue edge of the instability strip moves to higher temperature with increasing mass, the lower temperature of this model is within the instability strip. However, the presence of accretion likely causes abundance and atmospheric temperature differences in GW Lib compared to all known single white dwarf pulsators, and the current models that have been capable of explaining ZZ Ceti stars may not apply. Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.