EPJ Web of Conferences 16, 06008 (2011)
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20111606008

Brown dwarfs in retrogradely precessing cataclysmic variables?

¹ Department of Physics, UCF, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., Orlando, FL 32816, USA
² Centro de Astrobioloiga (CAB-CSIC), Ctra. Ajalvir km 4, 28850 Torrejon de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain

^a e-mail: montgomery@physics.ucf.edu

Abstract

We compare Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic simulations of retrogradely precessing accretion disks that have a white dwarf primary and a main sequence secondary with observational data and with theory on retrograde precession via tidal torques like those by the Moon and the Sun on the Earth [1, 2]. Assuming the primary does not accrete much of the mass lost from the secondary, we identify the theoretical low mass star/brown dwarf boundary. We find no observational candidates in our study that could qualify as brown dwarfs.