text:
# The central image of a gravitationally lensed quasar

## Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to S. Doeleman and P. Schechter for helpful discussions, and J. Bullock for comments on the manuscript. J.N.W. acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF) through an Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship. The VLA is part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, an NSF facility operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

Correspondence should be addressed to J.N.W. (e-mail: jwinn@cfa.harvard.edu).

Figure 2. The central radio component and the bright quasar images have similar radio spectra. (a) The flux density of each component as a function of frequency. (b) The flux density ratios relative to A. Results for C/A were multiplied by 10 for display purposes. All the observations at a given frequency from Table 1 and Ref. 15 were combined by averaging the flux density ratios and adopting the total flux density of the most recent measurement, to avoid problems due to source variability and inconsistencies in absolute flux density scale. The only discrepancy between C and A is at 1.7 GHz, where C is fainter than expected for a lensed image. One plausible explanation is free-free absorption due to ionized material $`\stackrel{<}{_{}}`$200 parsecs from the lens galaxy nucleus, the approximate position of C. The dashed line is a 2-parameter fit to the function $`\mu _{\mathrm{CA}}e^{\tau _\nu }`$, using a standard approximation\[Mezger & Henderson¡25¿\] for free-free opacity, $`\tau _\nu =0.08235`$ $`T^{1.35}\nu ^{2.1}E`$, where $`\nu `$ is the frequency (in GHz) and $`T`$ and $`E`$ are the temperature (in Kelvins) and emission measure (the integral of $`n_e^2`$ over the path length $`s`$, in cm-6pc) of the ionized medium. The required opacity $`\tau _\nu =0.7`$ at the lens-frame frequency $`\nu 3.4`$ GHz could be produced by circumnuclear material with, for example, $`T=6000`$ and $`E=10^7`$ ($`n_e=10^3`$ cm-3, $`s=10`$ pc), which seems physically reasonable. For comparison, the emission measure is larger than in most individual Galactic H ii regions ($`E`$$``$105-6; e.g., ref. 25), comparable to some ionized clouds around Sgr A ($`E`$$``$106-7; e.g., ref. 26), and smaller than observed around the nuclei of some radio galaxies ($`E`$$``$108, e.g., refs. 27,28). The free-free absorption hypothesis and the nature of the absorbing medium could be tested further with future low-frequency observations.


format: text

text:
# Similarities in the temporal properties of gamma-ray bursts and soft gamma-ray repeaters

## 1 Introduction

Over the past decade the evidence for neutron stars with ultra-strong magnetic fields or magnetars has become convincing. Soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) are associated with supernova remnants and have multiple bursts of gamma-rays which distinguish them from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) e.g. Zhang:2003 ; DeRujula:2003 . SGRs have intensely active periods which can last for weeks or months that are separated by quiescent phases lasting for years or decades Mazets:1979 . The most intense outburst recorded to date has $``$ 1044 ergs in $`\gamma `$-rays. Several SGRs and anomalous X-ray pulsars have been found to be X-ray pulsars that have unusually high spin down rates. The rapid reduction in spin is usually attributed to magnetic breaking caused by the super-strong magnetic fields with values above 10 14 G. In the magnetar model the magnetic field provides the burst energy Thompson:1992 . A common scenario is that stresses build up in the magnetic field and cause a quake in the crust of the neutron star which ejects plasma Alfvèn waves through the magnetosphere.

GRBs are non-recurrent catastrophic events that radiate $``$ 1051 ergs in $`\gamma `$-rays. There is substantial evidence that GRBs are linked to supernova explosions e.g. Hjorth:2003 . They are often modelled as accretion onto a newly formed black hole e.g. macfad:1999 . Recent measurements suggest that the $`\gamma `$-rays are highly polarised by the magnetic field which may originate in the central engine with values of B above 1017 G Coburn2003 . It is therefore interesting to compare the pulse properties of SGRs and GRBs. It has been noted that the lognormal distributions apply to the pulse properties of SGRs hmrs:1994 ; gogus:1999 ; gwk:2000  and GRBs mhlm:1994 ; lifen:1996 ; sheila:2001 . Furthermore the radio afterglow from the giant flare from SGR 1900 $`+`$ 14 is similar to radio afterglows from GRBs Cheng:2003 .

## 2 Time intervals between outbursts in SGRs and GRBs

SGR 1806 $``$20 had a very active phase during 1983 when more than 100 outbursts were recorded Laros:1987 ; Ulmer:1993 ; hmrs:1994 . The distribution of the time intervals between the outbursts is given in Figure 1 along with a lognormal fit to the data. Long time intervals between active phases ($`>`$ 10 years) can easily be accomodated by the long tail of the lognormal distribution hurley:1995 . The time intervals between pulses in two BATSE GRBs with large numbers of pulses are given in Figure 2 along with lognormal plots. The pulse properties and time intervals between the pulses in short and long GRBs have been found to be lognormally distributed mhlm:1994 ; lifen:1996 ; gupta:2000 ; sheila:2001 ; quilligan:2002 ; nakar\_prian:2002 . It is interesting to note that the time intervals between radio glitches in the Vela pulsar are lognormally distributed hmrs:1994 .

In Fig. 1 the median time interval between SGR outbursts is $``$ 104 s and in Fig. 2 the time interval between pulses in the GRBs is $``$ 1 s.

## 3 Cumulative light curves for SGRs and GRBs

The cumulative light curve has been shown to be an interesting parameter for SGRs palmer:1999  and GRBs mcbreenb:2002 . The running and cumulative light curves for the outbursts from SGR 1806 $``$ 20 are given in Figure 3. The cumulative light curves of a large majority of short and long GRBs has been found to be approximately linear with time. The running and cumulative light curves of the two GRBs in Figure 2 are given in Figure 4. The cumulative output increases linearly with time over the most active part of the GRB.

The cumulative output of the large majority of long and short GRBs was found to increase linearly with time mcbreenb:2002 .

## 4 Relaxation systems

The behaviour of bursting sources can be usefully compared with relaxation systems palmer:1999 ; mcbreenb:2002 . A relaxation system is taken to be one that continuously accumulates energy from some process and discontinuously releases it. The energy in the reservoir at any time $`t`$ is

$$E(t)=E_o+_o^tR(t)𝑑t\mathrm{\Sigma }S_i$$
(1)
where $`E_o`$ is the energy stored in the reservoir that accumulates energy at a rate $`R(t)`$ and discontinuously releases events of size $`S_i`$.

The simplest system is referred to as a relaxation oscillator where there is a fixed level or trip-point that triggers a release of the energy when E = Emax. The SGR and GRB pulses are not consistent with this type of oscillator. More complicated behaviour occurs when the accumulation rate, trigger rate or release strength are not constant rm:2001 . If the system starts from a minimum level E = Emin, accumulates energy at a constant rate R = r, the sum of the releases is approximately a linear function of time i.e. $`\mathrm{\Sigma }S_irt`$. This model can account for the approximately linear increase in cumulative counts. The output from GRBs and SGRs has a tendency to keep the cumulative count close to a linear function and maintain a steady state situation

In a minority of bright GRBs with many pulses it was found that the cumulative output increases with time as t2 in $``$ 10% of bursts and as (1-t)2 in $``$5%. This behaviour was attributed to a change in spin of the newly formed black hole mcbreenS:2002 .

## 5 Acknowledgement

SMcB acknowledges IRCSET grant number RS/2002/820-8M for support. LH, BMcB and JF thank IRCSET Basic Research Grant number SC-2002-377 for support.


text:
# Particle-number scaling of the phase sensitivity in realistic Bayesian twin-mode Heisenberg-limited interferometry

## I Introduction

Heisenberg-limited quantum interferometry (HLI) is of interest for ultra-precise measurement of phase and energy differences hli . Possible applications include the enhancement of atomic frequency standards and of gravitational-wave interferometers. Although optical interferometry often comes to mind first, interferometry at the Heisenberg limit concerns any bosonic quantum wave, and even fermionic ones yurke\_f . The absolute minimum error on the phase difference $`\varphi _{}`$ between the two interferometer arms, for $`N`$ detected bosons, is the Heisenberg limit (HL),

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{}\frac{1}{N},$$
(1)
to be compared to the shot-noise limit of the beam splitter (SNL),

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}.$$
(2)
These limits arise from the quantum interference of the two input modes, $`a`$ and $`b`$, on the first beam splitter (boson-mode splitter) of the interferometer (Fig. 1).

This interference defines the quantum noise $`\mathrm{\Delta }N_{}=N_aN_b`$ of the photon number difference at the output of the beam splitter (i.e. inside the interferometer). The quantum noise $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{}=\varphi _a\varphi _b`$ of the phase difference is then given by the number-phase Heisenberg inequality

$$\mathrm{\Delta }N_{}\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{}1.$$
(3)
In conventional interferometry, one of the inputs, say $`b`$, is a vacuum mode and the result of the interference is a binomial probability law, which yields the SNL, whatever the state of the bright input, $`a`$, is caves80 .

In order to achieve HLI, it is necessary to modify the vacuum input $`b`$. This can be done by squeezing a vacuum-field quadrature, as first proposed by Caves caves81  and experimentally realized by Xiao et al. xiao  and Grangier et al. grangier . Numerous other schemes have been proposed since hli , in particular by Yurke, McCall, and Klauder yurke  and Holland and Burnett holland .

This paper focuses on the latter proposal, whose experimental implementation is in progress in our group feng ; feng2 ; feng3 . It is based, for reaching the HL, on the use of indistinguishable twin Fock states

$$|\widehat{k}_a,\omega ,\widehat{ϵ};n|\widehat{k}_b,\omega ,\widehat{ϵ};n,$$
(4)
where $`\widehat{k}`$ is the unit wave vector, $`\omega `$ the frequency, $`\widehat{ϵ}`$ the unit polarization vector, and $`n`$ the photon (boson) number. It is remarkable that, in the same manner as for the SNL caves80 , common-mode quantum statistics do not matter and the HL can be reached as efficiently by using superpositions or mixtures of twin Fock states kim , or twin beams, whose density matrix is of the form

$$\rho =\underset{n,n^{}}{}\rho _{nn^{}}|\widehat{k}_a;n\widehat{k}_a;n^{}||\widehat{k}_b;n\widehat{k}_b;n^{}|,$$
(5)
with all quantum numbers identical between modes $`a`$ and $`b`$, except the wave vectors — which will be exactly matched at the beam splitter (Fig. 1).

Equations (4,5) describe perfectly correlated interferometer inputs. The physics of the HL in this case lies solely in the generalized Hong-Ou-Mandel interference hom  of the twin Fock states (4) at a beam splitter. Superpositions or mixtures (5) do not alter the result kim .

This has been demonstrated experimentally using a pair of independently number-squeezed picosecond-pulsed beams from optical fibers silb  and, more recently, by our group with ultrastable milliwatt-level twin beams emitted by a type II OPO electronically phase-locked at frequency degeneracy feng3 .

Good approximations of twin boson modes have also been implemented using internal atomic states of trapped ions meyer  and other proposals include internal atomic states of Bose-Einstein condensates orzel ; bouyer  and orthogonal phonons in a single trapped ion djw . In the following, we will consider the case of photons, but the reader should bear in mind that the generalization to bosons is mathematically immediate. Some physical analogs of the optical beam splitter are well known: for example, a $`\pi /2`$ resonant laser pulse coupling two atomic energy states is isomorphic to a balanced beam splitter overlapping two optical paths. Both are SU(2) systems and can be described by the Schwinger representation schwinger .

A particularity of the Holland-Burnett scheme lies in its nonconventional detection process. When a twin mode input is used, the expectation values for the output photon numbers of an interferometer are independent of the phase difference $`\varphi _{}`$ holland ; bouyer ; kim . Direct detection of the average output intensities, i.e. of the second-order moment of the input field, cannot therefore be used. The fourth-order moment is phase dependent, as has been noted first by Bouyer and Kasevich bouyer , however, a simple derivation of the variance of that measurement shows that its signal-to-noise ratio is very low: $`\sqrt{2}`$ at best kim , which lowers detection accuracy.

Coincidence detection can dramatically improve the signal-to-noise ratio of a fourth-order moment measurement and a proof-of-principle experimental demonstration has been carried out for $`N=2`$ kuzmich . It is, however, not clear how to extend coincidence measurements to photon numbers $`N>2`$. What’s more, an analysis of coincidence measurements in the presence of detector losses has shown extremely unfavorable results: in particular, it seems that the losses need to be smaller than $`N^1`$ for this approach to yield even sub-SNL results kim99 . These unfavorable results have cast a doubt on the experimental feasibility of twin-mode HLI burnett .

However, we would like to establish here that such is not the case if one considers the original measurement strategy proposed by Holland and Burnett, which does not rely on coincidence detection but on a Bayesian reconstruction procedure from dynamical photocurrent measurements holland . The present paper thus focuses on Bayesian twin-mode interferometry in the presence of detection losses, and on its scaling with the photon number.

The influence of losses on Bayesian HLI was investigated by numerical simulation in a previous paper kim , but the results were limited to low photon numbers (100) and did not address the question of the scaling of the sensitivity with $`N`$. In this paper, we carry out numerical simulations of Bayesian measurements for photon numbers ranging from $`N=10`$ to $`\mathrm{10\hspace{0.17em}000}`$, in the presence of arbitrary detector losses. The results are very different from the ones obtained for coincidence detection and the prospects for experimental realizations are not as unfavorable as one might have feared from the conclusions of kim99 .

In Section II of this paper, we briefly review quantum interferometry and the Bayesian measurement procedure. We then present our numerical simulations in Section III and conclude.

## II Twin-mode HLI

All optical interferometers can be modeled using a Mach-Zehnder model (Fig. 2),

i.e. a first beam splitter “splits” the input light beam into two paths $`a`$ and $`b`$ which experience a phase difference to be measured and the fields are then “recombined” by a second beam splitter. The goal is to measure this phase difference with high precision. As mentioned earlier, the output statistics of the first beam splitter determine the sensitivity and noise properties of the interferometer.

For conventional interferometry, the input state

$$|\widehat{k}_a,\omega ,\widehat{ϵ};N|\widehat{k}_b,\omega ,\widehat{ϵ};0,$$
(6)
yields a binomial law for the beam splitter output statistics $`\mathrm{\Delta }N_{}\sqrt{N}`$ caves80 . If the input is a minimum uncertainty state — equality in (3) — the standard deviation of the phase difference is then the SNL (2).

A squeezed-vacuum input state can be used too:

$$|\widehat{k}_a,\omega ,\widehat{ϵ};\alpha |\widehat{k}_b,\omega ,\widehat{ϵ};0,r,$$
(7)
where $`r`$ is the squeezing parameter. If the squeezing is in quadrature with the coherent state $`|\alpha `$, phase-difference squeezing is obtained at the output of the beam splitter caves81 ; wm .

We now turn to twin-mode Heisenberg-limited interferometry, where the input state is that of Eq. (4). The detail of the theory is given in holland ; kim  and briefly recalled here. As mentioned in the Introduction, the expectation value of the output intensity of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer is independent of the phase shift $`\varphi `$ between the two arms. The Bayesian detection method is therefore used. It consists of burst measurements of the output intensities, rather than average measurements yielding the expectation value. The probability distribution of the output intensity is easy to derive kim  in the Schwinger representation schwinger  and is given by

$$P(j,m,\varphi )=\frac{(jm)!}{(j+m)!}[P_j^m(\mathrm{cos}\varphi )]^2,$$
(8)
where $`j=(n_a+n_b)/2`$ and $`m=(n_an_b)/2`$, $`n_{a,b}`$ are the measured photon numbers at each output, and where $`P_j^m(\mathrm{cos}\varphi )`$ is an associated Legendre polynomial. Note that, if there are no losses, $`j=N`$ always for input state (4) because of unitarity.

Assuming each measurement result independent of one another, the probability of a set of $`k`$ burst measurements $`[(j_1,m_1);\mathrm{};(j_k,m_k)]`$ is simply the product

$$P^{(k)}(\varphi )=\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}P(j_i,m_i,\varphi ).$$
(9)
When plotted against $`\varphi `$ (Fig. 3), $`P^{(k)}`$ is fairly broad at $`k=1`$ but narrows down quickly to a sharp peak with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi N^1`$ at $`k=10`$.

In the presence of optical losses, analytical treatment is very complicated and numerical simulation is necessary, in particular in order to elucidate the scaling of the phase error with the photon number. This is the subject of the next section.

## III Numerical simulations of nonideal Bayesian twin-mode HLI

### III.1 Method

The monte carlo simulation for this study uses twin Fock states as the input. The detectors along with their efficiencies are simulated on the output ports. For each phase difference measurement within a specified range, the program samples a number of one-shot instantaneous intensity difference measurements at the photodetectors. This corresponds to a number difference $`m`$ between the output beams. While the average number difference is expected to be zero over long measurement times, instantaneous fluctuations are not. Thus in any given measurement the number difference may be drastically different from zero. Using this difference the program reconstructs a probability distribution for the phase, for each burst measurement of the number difference $`m`$.

Each measurement gives a different $`m`$, most of the time, and can also give a different $`j`$ if detectors are not 100% efficient or the input state is not perfectly correlated. Previous work showed that both cases are equivalent, even though the nonideal-detector case is much easier to handle numerically, using Legendre in lieu of general Jacobi polynomials kim . We therefore claim that a general analysis can be carried out by solely accounting for detection losses and assuming ideal initial correlations.

The “measured” peak of Fig. 3 is centered on the “true” phase value, fixed by the program, and the peak width gives the measurement uncertainty. The code calculates this uncertainty and shows a diminishing value as the number of bursts in the measurement increases. This occurs even if the peak predicted by the probability distribution is not in fact centered at the proper phase value (postulated by the program before measuring the intensity difference). In such a situation, the distance of the measured peak from the real phase value becomes the dominant factor in the uncertainty, as the width of the distribution is generally much smaller than this value. On average this distance is much smaller than the SNL for all types of quantum efficiencies studied, and it reaches the HL for 100% efficiency.

Several total input photon numbers were used in the program, $`10`$, $`100`$, $`1000`$, and $`10000`$ at efficiencies of $`90\%`$, $`99\%`$, $`99.9\%`$, $`99.99\%`$, and $`100\%`$.

For each phase difference specified there is an associated Legendre polynomial evaluated that is used to simulate the detected total photon number and number difference between the detectors. The losses are computed by operating on the total number of photons in each beam as they exit the second beam splitter using a binomial distribution weighted by the detector efficiency. The total number of photons on the output ports is simulated using a random possibility to transmit or reflect each photon at the beam splitters, which depends on the phase.

For examples of the probability distributions, or synonymously, phase distributions, see Figs. 3 and 4 (note the vertical axes are in arbitrary units that indicate relative probability compared to points on the same phase distribution).

### III.2 Results

All of the figures in this section refer to uncertainties on measurements of phase angles $`\varphi =1/N`$. This means the data points in each graph refer to the uncertainty in a measurement for a different phase angle from one data point to the next. The most important results are found for phase differences ranging from zero to a few times $`1/N`$. There is no “optimal” phase angle in this range, unlike what Kim et al. found for coincidence detection kim99 . For large phase angles ($`\varphi \pi /2`$), one cannot acheive better than the SNL. Further, the uncertainty is found to be quasi-ideal for nonideal quantum detection efficiencies $`\eta =\eta _N`$ such that

$$\eta _N=1\frac{1}{N}.$$
(10)
We have also found the remarkable result that the phase measurement uncertainty scales as $`1/N`$ for such nonideal quantum efficiencies, as in the case of 100% efficient detectors. This defines a margin of experimental conditions within which the phase uncertainty may be further increased below the SNL by merely increasing the boson number $`N`$, but not the efficiency itself (or the effective photon correlation). Even though $`\eta _N`$ may be thought of impossible to reach at optical powers, such may not be the case with matter waves, where very high efficiency detection is possible.

While detector efficiencies smaller than $`\eta _N`$ do not yield such a favorable scaling of the phase measurement error ($`1/\sqrt{N}`$ instead of $`1/N`$, like squeezing measurements wm ), it is nevertheless found that the Bayesian measurement method can always give a better precision than the SNL, which, again, was not the case for coincidence detection kim99 . In this regime, the gain in phase error is solely conditioned by the improvement of the effective correlation, as is the case for vacuum squeezing experiments wm .

We now turn to the simulation plots. For 100% efficiency (Fig. 5) the phase error follows $`1/N`$ as expected and one can also see that both the simulated SNL and HL are slightly below $`1/\sqrt{N}`$ or $`1/N`$.

We attribute this to the averaging process of multiple-burst measurements. In situations involving linear averaging, one gets a reduction factor of the noise of $`1/\sqrt{p}`$, where $`p`$ is the number of data samples. In our case, the measurement probabilities are multiplied together, not averaged. Nevertheless, the results are found to lay within less than an order of magnitude of a line consistent with the HL reduced by $`1/\sqrt{p}`$, where $`p`$ is the number of probability distributions, or bursts.

For nonideal efficiencies $`\eta <100\%`$ (Figs. 6 to 8), we find that the phase error follows $`1/N`$ for low photon numbers before crossing the HL line to follow the SNL at $`1/\sqrt{N}`$. Our simulations indicate that the inflexion point is $`1/(1\eta )`$.

For cases of 90%, 99%, and 99.9% efficiency, as one would expect, scaling occurs as $`1/N`$ for small $`j`$, and then rapidly depreciates as photon number increases. This can be explained by the probability distribution being dependant on the detector efficiency, i.e. the losses in the total photon number. At 99% for 100 photons one would expect to detect on average 99 photons per measurement, while measuring 10000 photons at an efficiency of 99% naturally produces much larger gross losses, even though the percentage losses are equivalent for the two cases. The case of 90% efficiency is shown in Fig 8 to illustrate this point. Important to note is that the average error stays below the SNL, even for 10000 photons. Between 500 and 10000 one can observe the scaling take on a definite nature of $`1/\sqrt{N}`$. The distance below the classical line is within an order of magnitude and is again due to the use of Bayes theorem, coupled to the degree of effective correlation determined by the loss level. It is also important to note that this line is well below the “true” SNL, which is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi =\frac{1}{\sqrt{\eta N}}.$$
(11)
All other efficiencies naturally follow this trend.

This leads us to finally consider the particular quantum efficiency $`\eta _N`$ of Eq. 10. The results of the simulations are plotted in Fig. 9, which shows, indeed, a behavior comparable to that of the ideal efficiency of Fig. 5 and has been confirmed for phases within the range of $`\varphi =0`$ to several times $`\varphi =1/N`$.

### III.3 Interpretation

As the phase angle measured here suggests, in typical experiments the measured phase will need to be within a small range. As phase angle difference increases one obtains larger error bars on the measured phase, as figure 10 indicates.

This is true for all efficiencies studied here. As is clearly evident from the graph, the error bars at higher phase differences are much greater in magnitude than the distance of the measured phase from the line. The opposite case prevails at low phase differences. Kim et al have suggested that an optimal phase angle exists for each efficiency for which uncertainty is minimized kim99 . However, if one opts for the Bayesian postprocessing of data analyzed here, rather than for coincidence measurements, then evidently there is no optimal phase difference, and any minute phase shift around a multiple of $`\pi `$ radians can be measured with high confidence.

## IV Conclusion

We have presented a theoretical study of twin Fock states incident on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, with simulated measurements based on the Bayesian probability reconstruction first proposed by Holland and Burnett holland ; kim . The lingering question of the scaling of the phase measurement error with the photon number has been elucidated and it has been found that:

$``$ One may beat the SNL for nonideal detector efficiencies without the signal-to-noise impediment of direct detection of the fourth-order correlation kim ; bouyer . This paves the way to the realization of a sub-SNL interferometry experiment with phase-locked twin beams feng3 , an interesting prospect since intensity-difference squeezing is one of the most performant experimental systems available.

$``$ Nonideal efficiencies can still allow one to reach the HL provided that the losses are of the order of $`1/N`$. Such requirements may be too stringent for photon interferometry, but Bose-Einstein condensates or other atom or trapped-ion experiments may be good candidates.

$``$ The problems found with coincidence detection kim99  are not relevant to Bayesian twin-mode HLI.

## V Acknowledgements

This work is supported by ARO grants DAAD19-01-1-0721 and DAAD19-02-1-0104.


text:
# Rapid Oscillations in Cataclysmic Variables

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The discovery by Merle Walker (1956) on 9 July 1954 of a 71 s modulation in the light curve of DQ Her, the remnant of nova Herculis 1934, gave notice that cataclysmic variables (CVs) not only are binaries of short orbital period, they also are capable of producing periodic phenomena on what, in 1954, was of unprecedentedly short time scales. The rapidity and high stability of the modulation in DQ Her is now attributed to rotation of the white dwarf primary, and was the forerunner of the class of CVs known as intermediate polars (IPs), in which the magnetic field of the primary channels gas from the inner edge of an accretion disc onto spots or arcs on the primary, and of which about 32 are now known (Kuulkers et al. 2003). In the case of DQ Her the optical oscillations have been shown to be due to anisotropic radiation from the primary (located probably at two accretion hotspots, so the rotation period is actually 142 s), sweeping across the accretion disc, deduced from observed phase changes in eclipse of the continuum modulation and from the wavelength-dependence of pulsation phase in the emission lines (Warner et al. 1972; Patterson, Robinson & Nather 1978; Chanan, Nelson & Margon 1978; Martell et al. 1995; Silber et al. 1996).

In the early searches for further examples of the DQ Her phenomenon (see Warner (1988) for a history of the application of high speed photometry to CVs) only one more nova, V533 Her, was added (Patterson 1979). However, the same time scale phenomenon, albeit of much lower stability and usually of very low amplitude, was found (Warner & Robinson 1972) to be commonly present in dwarf novae during outburst and also in nova-like variables, i.e., in CVs of high rates of mass transfer ($`\dot{M}`$). These modulations, with periods initially observed in the range 8 – 40 s, became known as Dwarf Nova Oscillations (DNOs). In the optical they are usually of such low amplitude that they appear only in Fourier transforms, but occasionally they reach a few percent amplitude and can be seen directly in the light curve (Fig. 1). In almost all cases they are highly sinusoidal in pulse profile. There is no apparent correlation between amplitude of DNOs and orbital inclination.

The study of such rapid modulations in CV light curves used to necessitate the use of relatively inefficient photomultipliers, but the advent of high quantum efficiency CCDs, and the ability to window and bin their pixels, has made possible studies to much fainter levels, and in particular in crowded fields. An example of such a design, and its applications, is given in O’Donoghue (1995).

Longer time scale modulations, of large amplitude but much lower coherence, were identified in CV light curves by Patterson, Robinson & Nather (1977) and are commonly called Quasi-Periodic Oscillations (QPOs). As will be discussed below, these may have more than one time scale and physical origin.

Recently, a new type of DNO has been recognised (Warner, Woudt & Pretorius 2003; hereafter WWP), similar to the DNOs but having periods typically a factor of about four greater. These can co-exist with the DNOs and QPOs, and may at times be mistaken for ordinary DNOs.

I will examine the general properties of each of these kinds of short time scale modulations. A general review of the literature on oscillations in CVs up to 1995 can be found in Warner (1995a). I omit from discussion here the rapid oscillations that are observed at $``$ 1 Hz in the accretion columns of strongly magnetic CVs (polars) – e.g., Larsson (1992).

## 2 DNOs

From the time of their discovery it was recognised that, unlike DQ Her, which has $`Q=|\frac{dP}{dt}|^110^{12}`$, DNOs are low $`Q`$ modulations. On time scales of hours their periods can change by many seconds, but at other times are stable to milliseconds for many hours, giving $`10^3<Q<10^7`$. Two time scales of variation are known. The first, on an outburst time scale, is a period-luminosity relationship, connecting DNO period to optical brightness, but not in a single-valued manner, thus producing “banana loops” in a diagram of $`P_{DNO}`$ versus $`m_v`$ (Patterson 1981). Although it was early hypothesised that $`P_{DNO}`$ would be found to be simply related to accretion luminosity (Bailey 1980), and that this would produce such loops because of the observed time delay between bolometric and optical luminosities (Hassall et al. 1983; Warner 1995b), it was long before this could be directly demonstrated as a monotonic relationship between $`P_{DNO}`$ and EUV luminosity (which is a good monitor of bolometric accretion luminosity: Mauche 1996). It was even longer before simultaneous observations of DNOs in the optical and EUV showed identical, in phase, modulations (Mauche & Robinson 2001).

Although covering a smaller range of luminosities, the period-luminosity relationship has been demonstrated for nova-likes (Warner, O’Donoghue & Allen 1985). It would be of interest to study any DNOs in nova-likes that go into states of low $`\dot{M}`$ (i.e., the VY Scl stars).

The second time scale of variation is very short: even when the DNOs are at their most coherent, changes are seen as sudden small jumps in period (typically $``$ 0.03 s, i.e. $``$ 0.1%) that interrupt times of comparative stability lasting for thousands of seconds (Fig. 2). There is evidence that DNOs are most stable at maximum of outburst but that their stability (i.e., coherence length) progressively decreases late in outburst (e.g. Hildebrand, Spillar & Stiening 1981). The rarity with which any optical DNOs are seen at maximum light in VW Hyi, and their low amplitude ($``$1 mmag) when observed (Woudt & Warner 2002a: hereafter WW2a), could indicate that it is high stability that is rare, and that the usually employed Fourier transform techniques are inadequate for detecting drifting signals. Similarly, van der Woerd et al. (1987) were successful in detecting DNOs on only two occasions during extensive soft X-Ray observations of 7 outbursts of VW Hyi, where the modulation is large ($``$ 15%) when present.

The night-to-night change from easy detectability to complete absence of DNOs in nova-likes (e.g. UX UMa, where DNOs are found in only about half of the optical and HST observations: Nather & Robinson (1974); Knigge et al. (1998)) also indicate cessation rather than reduced coherence. The changes of amplitude of DNOs over a few hours often include disappearance and reappearance.

In addition to the abrupt changes in period, which are not accompanied by any noticeable change in system luminosity, there are short-lived phase excursions that appear to have no effect on the underlying trend in period. When best defined, the DNOs show the presence of an underlying clock with abrupt changes of period, on which the phase noise seems never to cause loss of knowledge of phase (Warner & Brickhill 1978; Jones & Watson 1992). However, the increasing frequency of the phase and period changes produces reduced coherence in late phases of outbursts. These short time scale variations are demonstrated in Fig. 2.

When sufficient DNO coherence occurs in eclipsing dwarf novae or nova-likes, phase and amplitude variations can be measured during the eclipses. These show that, as in DQ Her, DNOs are caused by “beams” of radiation carried round by rotation of the primary, (Nather & Robinson 1974; Patterson 1981; Petterson 1980). Confirmation comes from Keck time-resolved spectroscopy of V2051 Oph, which has a pulse phase in its emission lines that is wavelength dependent similar to that of DQ Her (Steeghs et al. 2001).

An inventory of DNO observations111In many cases there has been only one observation of a DNO in a given star, but its persistence for an hour or more is sufficient evidence for its existence. The full range of period is in most cases not yet determined, and therefore the order of stars in Table 1 (where in the first part they are listed by increasing minimum observed period) is to some extent arbitrary. In a few cases of very low amplitude, short duration of appearance, or other reason, I have omitted published claims of DNO detections. is given in Table 1. There are about 50 CVs in which standard DNOs have been detected, plus a few in which the nature of the DNOs is not yet determined. It is notable that none of the classic IPs appears in this list (an instructive exception is GK Per, see Section 4) – despite much high speed photometry none of these has been reported to have modulations at periods shorter than their primary spin-related periods.

## 3 LONGER PERIOD DNOs (lpDNOs)

It has recently been realised, from observing the literature as well as the sky, that there is another class of DNOs, showing coherence levels similar to DNOs but not following the same period-luminosity relationship – in fact, their periods may be independent of $`\dot{M}`$ (WWP). We have called these ‘longer period DNOs’ (lpDNOs); they have periods typically about four times greater than those of DNOs and can coexist with the latter. An example of this is shown in Fig. 3. They are mentioned, but without explanation, in a number of early papers on DNOs – specific examples are in VW Hyi, where a modulation with period averaging $``$ 88 s (in addition to $``$ 28 – 36 s DNOs) was seen on seven nights of an outburst as the system decreased in brightness from magnitude 10.6 to 13.7 (Haefner, Schoembs & Vogt 1979; examples of similar, but rare, periodicities in VW Hyi are given by WWP); SS Cyg, where $``$ 33 s modulation was present in addition to 10 s DNOs (Robinson & Nather 1979; Patterson 1981); HT Cas and AH Her, where $``$ 100 s modulations were seen (the former even in quiescence) but where normal DNOs have much shorter periods (Patterson 1981).

lpDNOs have now been observed in about 17 CVs (Table 1); these include some reclassifications, and there may be other cases where DNOs have mistaken identity. No studies of phase shifts during eclipse have yet been made, but the existence of double lpDNOs (Section 4.1) indicates that a rotating beam model is applicable and therefore phase shifts should occur.

As with DNOs, the lpDNOs are not always present; on average they have slightly larger amplitudes than DNOs and are more often seen directly in the light curve – see Fig. 4. For this reason some previously observed lpDNOs were classified as QPOs.

Comparison of the amplitude and phase changes of DNOs and lpDNOs when both are simultaneously present shows that they generally behave independently (WWP).

Table 1 includes four AM CVn stars – helium-transferring CVs with ultra-short orbital periods. The detection of the various types of rapid modulation in AM CVn stars is made difficult by the presence of strong harmonics to the main orbital/superhump brightness variations. (These harmonics are not independent oscillations in the system – they appear in Fourier transforms merely from the highly nonsinusoidal shapes of the principal modulations.)

Nevertheless, V803 Cen has long been known to possess a modulation at $``$ 178 s (O’Donoghue, Menzies & Hill 1987) of unknown origin. It is seen when V803 Cen has a high $`\dot{M}`$, but not during low states, its period appears independent of luminosity, and there are phase variations on time scales of hours, similar to those of DNOs (WWP). These are the characteristics of lpDNOs, rather than, e.g. possible pulsations of the primary. No ordinary DNOs have yet been detected in V803 Cen, but its compatriot CR Boo has shown the full set of DNO, lpDNO and QPO oscillations (WWP) and the type star AM CVn has shown both ordinary DNOs and two periodicities in the QPO range.

## 4 QUASI-PERIODIC OSCILLATIONS

Quasi-periodic modulations have orders of magnitude less coherence than DNOs. Because of this they are difficult to recognise in Fourier transforms – their power is spread over a wide band of frequency. They typically have $`Q520`$. An example of an unusually coherent train of 11 cycles of a QPO is shown in Fig. 5; a Fourier transform of this light curve shows that 19.4 s DNOs with a mean amplitude of 3.8 mmag were also present.

In principle there may be more than one kind of variation, e.g. almost constant period but with frequent large phase changes, with perhaps a clear growth and decay in amplitude between the phase jumps, or constantly varying period and amplitude over a limited range. There has as yet been no study or classification of such modulations; their analysis is hampered by the general stochastic flickering, arising from accretion processes, that is usually present in CVs (though here again some reclassification may be necessary – some of the flickering and flaring commented on in the CV literature has a QPO look about it). More refined definitions and analyses will probably reveal that QPOs are more common than hitherto realised – at present we accept only the QPOs in a light curve that are obvious to the eye.

A glance down the column listing QPO periods in Table 1 will indicate the evident existence of two time scales of QPO. In a few cases (e.g. WX Hyi, VZ Pyx, OY Car, perhaps V2051 Oph) two quite different periods of QPOs have been observed. For those systems where DNOs and/or lpDNOs are seen there are often QPOs at $``$ 15 times the DNO period or, equivalently, $``$ 4 times the lpDNO period. Apart from these there is a large number of observations of quasi-periodic modulations with periods in the range 1000 – 3000 s (note that GK Per is an exception here – its 5000 s QPO is $``$ 15 times its optical DNO period). I have to distinguish between these two kinds of QPO here, but am reluctant to introduce yet more nomenclature, and so will simply discuss separately those that are related to DNO/lpDNO periods and those that are not.

### 4.1 DNO-related QPOs

A valuable clue to the nature of these QPOs is given by the existence of “double DNOs”. Pairs of DNOs with small separations in period were found in V3885 Sgr (29.08 and 30.15 s: Hesser, Lasker & Osmer 1974), V2051 Oph (29.77 and 28.06 s: Steeghs et al. 2001), OY Car (17.94 and 18.16 s: Marsh & Horne 1998), V436 Cen (19.45 and 20.20 s: WWP), EC2117-54 (many examples, typically 22.10 and 23.27 s: WWP), CN Ori (11.23 and 12.10 s: WWP) and VW Hyi (see below: WW2a) – and there is the case of WZ Sge, which shows stable modulations at 27.87 and/or 28.95 s even in quiescence (Table 1), which I will discuss in Section 9.

In many of these cases the beat period between the double DNOs corresponds to the period of a QPO present at the same time – including WZ Sge (Warner & Woudt 2002b: hereafter WW2b). In Fig. 6 the mean pulse profiles of two DNO components and the accompanying QPO are illustrated. An example of a double lpDNO, split at the QPO frequency, has been found in VW Hyi (WWP).

Another clear example of an interrelationship between DNOs and QPOs is given by the light curve of VW Hyi for 5 Feb 2000 (Fig. 7), obtained at the end of outburst when large amplitude DNOs and QPOs typically occur in this star. The fall in brightness by a factor of about two during the observation caused steady increases in period for both the DNOs and the QPOs – the first time such an evolution of QPO period had been seen. The ratio $`P_{QPO}`$/$`P_{DNO}`$ remained at about 15 during this evolution (Fig. 8). This is generalised in Section 10.

### 4.2 Other QPOs

Even among the remaining QPOs there may be two or more distinct types. Many of the CVs listed in Table 1 with periods $``$ 1000 s are suspected by Patterson et al. (2002b) to be generated by IP structures – as in the case of GK Per where the underlying 351 s rotation of the primary is seen as $``$ 380 s modulation caused by reprocessing of the rotating beam off a varying period QPO source. The periods are characteristic of the “canonical” IPs, which have rotation periods $``$ 15 min and binary periods $``$ 4 h. Included among these systems are LS Peg and V795 Her, both of which show polarization modulated at the optical periods (Rodriquez-Gil et al. 2001, 2002), but which have not yet been proved to have the high stability required for definite IP status.

For these systems, therefore, the evidence is accumulating that their QPOs are another manifestation of magnetic primaries – and are occurring in IPs for which large amplitude coherent optical and X-Ray modulations are in some way suppressed – perhaps by high $`\dot{M}`$. These will therefore probably add directly to the tally of IPs.

But, anticipating the model developed in Section 6, a CV cannot have DNOs (and/or lpDNOs) and be an IP – the magnetic field is either strong enough to anchor the exterior of the white dwarf to the interior, or it is not – and this exclusivity is indeed demonstrated by the absence of any observed DNOs in known IPs. So we are left with at least a few CVs for which the QPOs cannot have a direct connection with rotation of the primary. In Table 1 these are the systems WX Hyi, VZ Pyx, OY Car and V2051 Oph, already mentioned above, and there may be others in which only QPOs have so far been detected. The time scales of some of these modulations are comparable with the rotation periods at the outer edges of a high $`\dot{M}`$ accretion discs (which are $``$ 0.20 $`P_{orb}`$ – equation 8.6 of Warner 1995a), but no definite models accompany this speculation.

Another possible source of brightness variation is modulation of $`\dot{M}`$ from the secondary, caused by non-radial oscillations of the secondary in a manner similar to that of the $``$ 5 min oscillations of the Sun. Small amplitude variations in radius of the secondary would be amplified in $`\dot{M}`$ by the great sensitivity of Roche lobe overflow.

## 5 X-RAY OBSERVATIONS

CVs, even nominally ‘non magnetic’ ones, are usually detectable in X-Rays: the low $`\dot{M}`$ systems have hard X-Ray emission and the high $`\dot{M}`$, optically thick, systems have soft X-Rays. A transition from hard to soft and back is seen during a dwarf nova outburst.

Table 2 lists X-Ray observations of DNOs and QPOs in CVs – it includes only the lower $`Q`$ modulations, i.e., it omits IPs. The best-studied systems are SS Cyg, U Gem and VW Hyi, which are close enough to the Sun for soft X-Rays to be received almost unabsorbed by interstellar gas and are thus very strong sources during outbursts. There appears to be a mixture of DNOs, lpDNOs and QPOs, but VW Hyi and U Gem in particular have full sets (note that in the case of VW Hyi the DNOs were observed at maximum but the QPOs were at the very end of outburst, so the ratio $`P_{QPO}`$/$`P_{DNO}`$ is not close to the value 15 seen in the optical). Where there is an overlap, it is evident that individual stars show the same modulation time scales in optical and X-Ray.

The phase behaviour of DNOs is the same in X-Rays as in the optical. The most detailed study is that of Jones & Watson (1992); one of their results is shown in Fig. 9, which should be compared with Fig. 2. The amplitude of modulation in this case averaged about 35% but at times reached nearly 100%. Such large amplitudes are commonly seen in soft X- Ray DNOs.

Table 2 shows that ordinary DNOs seen during dwarf nova outbursts occur in soft X-Rays but not hard X-Rays. This is most notable in the comprehensive study by Wheatley, Mauche & Mattei (2003: hereafter WMM) of an outburst in SS Cyg. The few observed hard X-Ray DNOs have all occurred at quiescence. WMM conclude that the source of the DNOs must lie in the optically thick boundary layer at the surface of the primary. Although ‘residual’ hard X-Rays are observed during outburst, these are not modulated as DNOs – but this is in accordance with the interpretation of these X-Rays as being coronal in origin (WMM).

On the other hand, modulations at QPO periods are seen in hard X-Rays, most strongly in VW Hyi just as the hard X-Rays are turning on at the end of an outburst (Wheatley et al. 1996) and in SS Cyg during the turn-off phase of hard X-Rays after the start of outburst and again when they turn on at the end of outburst (WMM). These phases correspond to the transitions between optically thick and optically thin discs, which themselves are governed by $`\dot{M}`$ in the inner disc. The QPOs themselves are not accompanied by any hardness variations, thus eliminating temperature variations or photoelectric absorption variations as the source of the oscillations – but it does allow quasi-periodic occultation by a source that is completely opaque at X-ray energies (WMM).

## 6 STATISTICAL VERSUS PHYSICAL MODELS

A number of statistical analyses of DNO light curves have been undertaken. Early models included a damped harmonic oscillator excited by white noise (Robinson & Nather 1979; Hildebrand, Spillar & Stiening 1981), and a sinusoidal oscillator exercising a random walk in phase (Horne & Gomer 1980; Cordova et al. 1980, 1984). One problem with such approaches is that although they may deliver quantitative values of statistical parameters these do not necessarily lead to any physical insight. A worse problem arises when it is seen that, for the best quality data, such analyses are inappropriate – e.g., Jones & Watson (1992) show that the random walk model does not represent the behaviour of the soft X-Ray DNOs of SS Cyg. But that should be no surprise given the systematic behaviour seen in the phase diagrams (Figs. 2 and 9).

A more profitable approach, therefore, is to start with the observed properties and try to envisage a model that can reproduce them. In presenting what I think is a viable model I am influenced by the following facts:

* At least 10% of single white dwarfs have magnetic fields $`>2\times 10^6`$ G, and the limited studies with sensitivities down to $`3\times 10^4`$ G suggest that the total may be significantly higher (Liebert, Bergeron & Holberg 2003). At least 25% of white dwarfs in CVs have detectable or directly inferable fields (i.e. they are polars or IPs), despite the fact that the current lower limit for detection in these systems is $`7\times 10^6`$ G (Wickramasinghe & Ferrario 2000). But here there may be a selection effect operating: most strongly magnetic CVs have been found from X-Ray surveys, which probe to greater distances than extant optical surveys (though the Sloan Digital Sky Survey may eventually remove this bias). On the other hand, at least some of the high $`\dot{M}`$ IPs avoided detection until recently (e.g. the SW Sex systems LS Peg and V795 Her). It has been suggested that in the common envelope phase magnetic fields are generated and amplified within the differentially rotating envelope (Regos & Tout 1995), so it would not be surprising to find that CV primaries are systematically more magnetic than isolated white dwarfs.
* Given this we may suspect that, not only are there many primaries in CVs with fields $`<7\times 10^6`$ G, they may even constitute a dominant fraction of the apparently “non magnetic” majority. The DNO model that I favour is based on this expected extension of the distribution of magnetic fields of primaries to values lower than those in IPs.

## 7 A MAGNETIC MODEL FOR DNOs and lpDNOs

The observed period-luminosity relationship for DNOs prompted Paczynski (1978) to suggest that magnetically channelled accretion was responsible, but onto an equatorial belt that slips on the surface of the primary, rather than onto the body of the primary itself. This was developed by Warner (1995b) and more recently in WW2b. Direct evidence for long-lived, rapidly rotating equatorial belts on the primaries of dwarf novae after outburst has come from HST observations (Sion et al. 1996; Gänsicke & Beuermann 1996; Cheng et al. 1997; Szkody et al. 1998; Sion & Urban 2002), where spectra are found to be composite, comprising a white dwarf in relatively slow rotation plus a hot belt rotating at a rate comparable to the Keplerian velocity at the surface of the primary.

I will describe the model briefly, and show how it relates to the principal observed properties of DNOs, lpDNOs and QPOs.

An accretion torque applied to the surface of a star can only be communicated to the bulk of the star if the viscosity of the interior of the star is large enough. Degenerate material is notoriously slippery, so a white dwarf behaves like a solid body only if it is permeated by a strong enough magnetic field (Durisen 1973). Strong enough’ turns out to be $`B>1\times 10^5`$ G (Katz 1975, WW2b). For accretion to be magnetically controlled near the surface of the primary $`B`$ must also be strong enough – depending on $`\dot{M}`$ and the geometry of the field. For $`\dot{M}5\times 10^{17}`$ g s-1, probably the maximum reached in dwarf novae in outburst, the requirement (for a multipole field) is $`B>2\times 10^4`$ G (equation 16 of WW2b).

There is therefore a window of opportunity – even high $`\dot{M}`$ accretion onto low field primaries can be magnetically controlled by whatever field the freely slipping equatorial belt has. The field within the belt itself will be enhanced during accretion, by differential shearing of the field lines, which aids magnetic channelling; this may also explain why dwarf novae in quiescence in general do not show DNOs. CVs with very low intrinsic fields should never show DNOs: several dwarf novae and nova-likes have been extensively observed with high time resolution without any sign of DNOs (Patterson (1981) and Warner (1995a) list examples) – these constitute the genuine non-magnetic CVs.

The model is therefore similar to that for an IP, but is of low $`Q`$: the mass of the belt accreted during a dwarf nova outburst (obtained by measuring the total energy radiated, $`10^{39}10^{40}`$ erg, and ascribing it to released gravitational energy) is $`10^{22}`$ g (cf. $`10^{33}`$ g for the whole primary) and can thus be easily tugged around by magnetic coupling to the accretion disc. It spins up as $`\dot{M}`$ increases on the rising branch of outburst, which compresses the magnetosphere of the primary and decreases the period at the inner radius of the disc. Because $`\dot{M}`$ varies with time during an outburst, no equilibrium is reached. As the inner radius of the disc steadily decreases, the minimum energy state for accretion is constantly being sought, so field lines reconnect between the equatorial belt (which has differential rotation in latitude as well as in depth) and the disc, resulting in accretion along field lines connected to zones of slightly different periods of rotation. This search for equilibrium causes the sudden jumps of DNO period as matter is transferred from one magnetic channel to another; they are least frequent at maximum luminosity when $`\dot{M}`$ passes through its turning point and hence is most constant.

After maximum luminosity, $`\dot{M}`$ decreases steadily, and at some point the inner edge of the disc retreats so rapidly that the belt is not able to slow its rotation period rapidly enough to maintain near equilibrium. Then gas attaching itself to the field lines anchored in the belt is centrifuged outwards, stopping most of the accretion onto the primary and extracting angular momentum from the belt.

Evidence for such ‘propellering’ is seen in VW Hyi. The variation in DNO period as a function of brightness on the descending branch of outburst is shown in Fig. 10. The general correlation between period and brightness for $`8.3<V<12.3`$ is an example of the ubiquitous period-luminosity relationship referred to above. But that is succeeded by a phase of extremely rapid increase in period, during which the DNO period doubles in about 6 hours. This phase is concomitant with cessation of EUV flux (Fig. 11). As EUV flux is a competent monitor of $`\dot{M}`$ onto the primary, it can be seen that accretion is reduced to a trickle exactly at the time that the deduced rapid deceleration of the equatorial belt is occurring.

What about lpDNOs? Their independence from accretion luminosity puts them in a different category from ordinary DNOs, but in other aspects they behave like magnetically channelled accretion, including the existence of double lpDNOs split at the QPO frequency (Section 4.1). A clue to the cause of their longer periods comes from observed rotationally broadened spectra of some CV primaries. Taking the observed projected rotational velocities (Sion 1999) and adopting measured or estimated masses and inclinations (details are given in WW2b and WWP) we find the following rotation periods (all with at least 20% uncertainty): VW Hyi: 140 s; SS Cyg: 63 s; OY Car: $`>`$260 s. These rotation periods are roughly twice the observed lpDNO periods, which would occur for accretion onto two regions of the primary. I suggest, therefore, that lpDNOs are literally connected to the primary’s rotation, which will be differential in latitude as material accreted at the equator spreads out across the surface. This explains why, unlike DNOs, lpDNO periods are not correlated with $`\dot{M}`$ and they behave independently of DNOs.

If this interpretation is correct then the lpDNOs allow an extension of knowledge of rotation periods – from the IP region to primaries of lower field strength. The definite lpDNOs in Table 1 cover the range 33 – 177 s. If we exclude AE Aqr, then the presently known IPs have rotation periods that range from 142 s of DQ Her to 4021 s for EX Hya. The reason for omitting AE Aqr is because the field of $`3\times 10^5`$ G deduced for it (Wynn, King & Horne 1997; Choi & Yi 2000) is at the bottom end of the range of IP fields and may not be quite large enough for the primary to behave as a solid body. This in turn calls into question the high spin-down power that is deduced from the observed large $`dP_{rot}/dt`$ in AE Aqr (de Jager et al. 1994): indeed, the rapid spin-down may be simply because only the inertia of the outer layers of the primary is coupled to the retarding torque (which, because of the high rotation rate, is largely due to propellering).

The existence of two clear groups – rapidly rotating primaries with signatures of weak fields, and slower rotating IPs with quite strong fields – constitutes a correlation between magnetic field strength and rotation period of the primary. This is related to the fact that the stronger the field, the larger is the radius of the magnetosphere, and the longer is the IP equilibrium period. But $`\dot{M}`$ also plays a role – the larger the $`\dot{M}`$, the smaller the equilibrium radius of the magnetosphere. And from the observed time scales $`\frac{P_{rot}}{|dP_{rot}/dt|}10^6`$ y in IPs we see that it is the average $`\dot{M}`$ over the past millions of years that determines the current value of Prot. Such a time scale probably includes several nova explosions, and may include long periods of very low $`\dot{M}`$ (hibernation – see Section 9.4.3 of Warner 1995a), so the apparent correlation between field strength and spin period means either that the presently weak field CVs have preferentially had historic high $`\dot{M}`$, or that all CVs experience roughly similar average $`\dot{M}`$ and that their spin periods are solely a result of their weaker fields. The latter scenario seems more probable, and, indeed, if measurements of $`B`$ can be made, offers a way to estimate long-term average values of $`\dot{M}`$.

I have suggested that DNOs and lpDNOs are the signatures of magnetically channelled accretion onto regions that are rotating respectively with maximum angular velocities close to the equatorial Keplerian velocity and at roughly one eighth (for two-pole accretion) of that velocity. According to Kippenhahn & Thomas (1978), the large specific angular momentum of material accreted at the equator onto a non-magnetic primary results in very slow mixing to higher latitudes: the time scale is much greater than the time between nova eruptions (but note that this computation includes only mixing via the Richardson instability; coupling of parts of the surface by closed loop magnetic fields will also distribute angular momentum). They find that the latitudinal width of the equatorial belt, caused by mixing and defined as that latitude where the velocity falls to half of the equatorial velocity, is $`20^{}`$ (beyond which it falls very rapidly). They also find that $`10^4`$ y of accretion at $`10^9`$ M y-1 results, after mixing with surface material, in a belt with an angular velocity 0.22 of the Keplerian velocity in the equatorial plane – and therefore $``$ 0.11 at latitude 20. In the suggested model for lpDNOs this would mean that the body of the primary (or, at least where accretion onto it occurs) has acquired a rotation period close to that of the belt at its outer edge.

Perhaps the most direct evidence so far for magnetically controlled accretion in a dwarf nova comes from the analysis of XMM-Newton observations of OY Car just after an outburst. Wheatley & West (2003) show that the eclipse implies that the X-Ray emitting region is noticeably smaller than the surface of the primary, and is away from the equator (at latitude $`50^{}`$ in their diagram). It is the presence of such accretion that may account for the rare 48 s QPOs observed in OY Car during quiescence (WWP) and the 60 s X-Ray QPOs seen in VW Hyi in quiescence (Pandel, Cordova & Howell 2003).

Almost as direct evidence is given by the presence of a variable strength inverse P Cygni feature observed in the spectrum of VW Hyi during outburst, which has been interpreted as structured inflow of gas from the inner edge of a truncated disc (Huang et al. 1996).

## 8 THE NATURE OF QPOs

The observational evidence available at present shows (WW2b) that when a double DNO occurs then it is the shorter of the two periods that is at the expected DNO period – and the profile of that signal is sinusoidal. The longer period often has a significant first harmonic (e.g., Marsh & Horne 1998; Fig. 12). The fact that the DNO frequency is accompanied by only one sideband shows that this is not a case of modulation of the DNO at the QPO frequency; rather it is similar to the dominant sideband seen in IPs – which is caused by ‘reflection’ (more correctly, reprocessing) of the rotating beam off the secondary (or other structure, such as a thickening of the disc at stream impact, revolving at the orbital frequency). By analogy we conclude that the longer period DNO component is generated by the rotating DNO beam being reprocessed by a structure revolving in a prograde direction around the primary at the QPO period. The irregular profile of this structure causes the harmonics in the reprocessed signal.

The periods of most QPOs are so short (relative to the orbital period) that the accretion disc is the only possible location for the reprocessing site. If revolving at the Keplerian period the site would be in the outer region of the disc and would have to have a very large vertical height in order to intercept enough of the rotating DNO beam. This is not out of the question, but perturbation analyses of accretion discs show that there are a number of oscillatory modes available, and that a slowly moving prograde travelling wave in the inner disc is the most likely to be excited (Lubow & Pringle 1993). Such a travelling wave, excited by a process of magnetic winding and reconnection, has been proposed as the structure that generates the double DNOs (WW2b). The QPOs themselves are then the result of reprocessing and/or obscuration of the radiation from the hot inner regions by the travelling wave.

The obscuration aspect of QPOs is demonstrated by the occasional presence of deep dips at the minima of the QPO modulations, which pull the light curve well below its interpolated lower envelope (see, e.g., Figure 2 of WW2b). A particularly interesting QPO profile is shown by SW UMa, in which the minimum of the $``$ 370 s modulation is deepened by an apparent shallow eclipse of $``$ 70 s duration, which is probably a partial eclipse of the primary (Fig. 14).

This model for optical QPOs – simple reflection and obscuration by an excited mode of the accretion disc – differs greatly from some earlier proposals that also invoke oscillation modes of discs. In those (non-magnetic) studies (e.g. Carroll et al. 1985; Collins, Helfer & van Horn 2000) the QPOs are supposed to be oscillations of the intrinsic luminosity of the disc itself. This is a viable option for non-magnetic primaries, but it remains to be demonstrated observationally that such oscillation modes are excited and generate detectable QPOs.

The QPOs observed in the hard X-Ray emission of SS Cyg during outburst are not entirely compatible with the above model. Although deep dips that appear to be obscurations accompany the QPOs (Figure 9 of WMM), the quasi-periodic peaks cannot be due to a reflection effect. The overall effect looks more like QPOs of $`\dot{M}`$ at the inner boundary layer.

In this regard it is of interest to note parallel studies in other fields of astrophysics that have relevance to the QPOs in CVs. Quasi-periodic accretion and ejection of dense knots of gas in young stellar objects (YSOs) has been modelled as an interaction between a magnetic star and its accretion disc. The inner boundary of the disc undergoes quasi-periodic radial oscillations, each of which strips a ring of gas that falls onto the star (Goodson, Böhm & Winglee 1999; Goodson & Winglee 1999). In the application to YSOs, appropriate parameters lead to an estimate of the oscillation period as $`100/2\pi `$ times the Keplerian period at the inner edge of the disc. It can be shown that the same mechanism applied to high $`\dot{M}`$ CV discs and $`B10^6`$ G produces a similar result, which we can interpret as $`P_{QPO}/P_{DNO}100/2\pi 16`$. Such modulation of accretion onto low field CV primaries is therefore another mechanism that could produce QPOs at the observed periods. These would probably look more like flares than sinusoidal modulations. A possible example is shown in Fig. 13 where recurrent flares with a quasi-period of $``$ 750 s are seen. In this light curve, low amplitude ordinary QPOs at 347 s were also present, demonstrating the permitted co-existence of the two types of QPO.

In similar modelling by Uzdensky (2002) and Uzdensky, Königl & Litwin (2002) of accretion from a disc into the magnetosphere of an aligned magnetic rotator, it is found that field winding and reconnection can lead to quasi-periodic accretion. The first results of 3D modelling of accretion onto an inclined dipole rotator have recently appeared in which short time scale QPOs also are found (Romanova et al. 2003).

## 9 FREQUENCY DOUBLING AND ALIASING

DNOs in the EUV region of SS Cyg have been observed in several outbursts (Mauche 1996b, 1997b, 1998, 2002) and constitute the most complete coverage of the evolution of DNOs in this wavelength region. The DNOs were found to be mostly sinusoidal in profile, except that at the brightest parts of outbursts in August 1993 and June 1994 a noticeable first harmonic appeared. Then, in the October 1996 outburst, with SS Cyg at its brightest, the fundamental disappeared and the signal doubled in frequency to become entirely first harmonic, i.e. with a period $``$ 3 s. The next outburst was observed in soft X-Rays and was also found to have a 2.8 s DNO (van Teeseling 1997).

Before discussing possible physical causes of the frequency doubling, it is useful to point out that such short oscillation periods have implications for optical photometry of DNOs. For example, the 9.735 s DNO observed in SS Cyg by Patterson, Robinson and Kiplinger (1978) at the unprecedentedly low amplitude of 0.02 mmag is now seen (as was allowed by the authors at the time) to be a beat between a true period of 6.790 s (or its first harmonic) and the photometric integration time of 4s. If under-sampled in such a way, a sinusoidal signal is reduced in amplitude by a factor of $`\mathrm{sin}x/x`$, where $`x=pdt/P_{DNO}`$ and $`dt`$ is the integration time. For the case under consideration, the true amplitude of the 6.79 s DNO would therefore have been 0.04 mmag, or 0.14 mmag if frequency doubling had occurred.

Another interesting example is given by the ‘type star’ for QPOs – namely, RU Peg. The Fourier transform for RU Peg computed by Patterson, Robinson & Nather (1977) shows a QPO centred on 50 s and a 0.6 mmag DNO at 11 s; their integration time was 4s. From the discussion in Section 4 we would expect DNOs at $``$ 50/15 $``$ 3.3.s, not at 11 s. One possibility, therefore, is that the observed signal at 11 s was a beat with the integration time, and that the true signal was 2.97 s with an amplitude of 2.8 mmag. This opens the further possibility that RU Peg had undergone frequency doubling at that time. Yet another possibility is that the observed 11 s signal was a low amplitude lpDNO and there was no ordinary DNO detected at all.

The lesson to be learnt from this is that it is necessary either to carry out photometry of DNOs with integration times of 1 s or less, or alternatively to split up the observations using non- commensurate integration times – e.g. alternate runs with 4 s and 5 s integrations.

The physical cause of frequency doubling is not yet clear – it is a topic to be explored that could lead to greater insight into normal DNO behaviour. A transition from single pole to two-pole accretion is an obvious possibility. As $`\dot{M}`$ increases to a maximum value the magnetosphere is squashed close to the surface of the white dwarf, at which point higher multipole components of the magnetic field geometry become more resilient than the dipole component (Lamb 1988) and what may have been a single visible accretion region could become two or more accreting zones (though only one or two are likely to capture most of the accretion flow).

Another possible model results from the change in viewing geometry when the inner radius of the disc approaches the surface of the primary. At moderate to high orbital inclinations the primary obscures the inner part of the rear of the disc, and the front side of the disc, with its accretion curtain, can obscure the lower hemisphere and perhaps even part of the equatorial accretion zone. Furthermore, accretion columns or curtains are often of lowest optical thickness perpendicular to the accretion flow, which produces a fan beam. In either case the maximum direct visibility of an accretion zone may be near each limb of the rotating primary with the result that a single bright region will be seen twice per rotation.

It would be helpful to have simultaneous EUV/X-Ray and optical observations – the different wavelength regions give different points of view, the former showing what happens as seen directly from the centre of the system, and the latter showing largely what the disc sees. It is possible that frequency doubling could occur at the short wavelengths but not at visible wavelengths.

An instructive example of a powerful effect of geometry is given by the IP XY Ari, in which the amplitude (in X-Rays) of the 206 s periodic pulse is $``$ 20% and is double peaked in quiescence but $``$ 90% and single peaked in outburst. This is an example of period doubling rather than frequency doubling during outburst, the interpretation of which is that in quiescence there are two almost equal and $`180^{}`$ out of phase pulses, coming from two-pole accretion, but during an outburst the inner edge of the disc moves so close to the primary that the lower pole is obscured, removing the filling-in effect of the other pole (Hellier, Mukai & Beardmore 1997).

But there may be other reasons for frequency doubling, especially when we note that QPOs can also double (or halve) their frequencies. The QPOs in VW Hyi appear to double in frequency (WW2b) when the system is approaching quiescence, when the inner edge of the disc must be well above the surface of the primary and cannot be responsible for any geometric effects. Frequency doubling of QPOs in KT Per has been reported (Robinson & Nather 1979). The claimed steady decrease in period of QPOs in EF Peg (Kato 2002) is probably more realistically interpreted as an approximate frequency doubling near the middle of the train of oscillations. These may be understood as switches to and from predominantly fundamental and first harmonic excitations of the QPO travelling wave, but the cause for this remains unknown.

## 10 WZ Sge

WZ Sge is of particular interest because it seems to be an IP while in quiescence and a DNO machine when in outburst – a result of the primary having a magnetic moment almost strong enough to anchor the exterior to the interior. I use ‘almost’ because in quiescence prior to the 1978 outburst, $`P/\dot{P}1\times 10^5`$ y (see Figure 7 of Patterson 1980), which is too short a time scale to be a spin- down of the entire primary.

#### 10.0.1 WZ Sge in Quiescence

The connection between WZ Sge and DNO/QPO phenomena has taken a long time to demonstrate convincingly. Patterson et al. (1998) reviewed the optical observations and added ASCA hard X-Ray observations showing modulation at 27.87 s, which are characteristic of magnetic channelling onto a white dwarf. HST observations also show the dominance of 27.87 s (Skidmore et al. 1999). The observed $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ (Cheng et al. 1997) for the primary of WZ Sge leads to a rotation period 28 $`\pm `$ 8 s, which is in agreement with the magnetic accretor model.

The presence of an additional persistent 28.952 s modulation, which bears no simple relationship to that at 27.87 s, led some workers to suggest that it may be a non-radial oscillation of the primary (e.g. Robinson, Nather & Patterson 1978). Patterson (1980) originally pointed out that the 28.95 s period could be due to reprocessing of a 27.87 s rotating beam from a progradely-moving thickening of the disc. Lasota, Kuulkers & Charles (1999) suggested that this reprocessing site could be at the outer rim of the accretion disc, moving at the Keplerian period, but WW2b suggested, in analogy with their findings in outbursting dwarf novae, that the site is near the inner edge of the disc. The existence of the hypothesised disc thickening, moving with a revolution period of 744 s (the beat period between the two short periods), has in fact been directly demonstrated (WW2b). FTs of some of the light curves show that there is a 744 s period present (it is probably there at all times, but the large variation of amplitude from one cycle to the next makes it difficult to detect in the FT) – in the light curve it appears as recurrent dips of variable depth, the most prominent of which is around orbital phase 0.25 and has been seen in almost all optical curves from the earliest observations (Krzeminski & Kraft 1964). The obscuring source produces the deepest dip when it transits across the bright spot as seen from behind; it does not transit the bright spot when seen from the front, so there is no corresponding deep dip near phase 0.75.

The infrared (K-band) light curve of WZ Sge is far less variable than the light curves at shorter wavelengths and is largely due to the modulation caused by viewing the bright spot through an optically thin disc (Skidmore et al. 2002). Interestingly, no QPO dips are seen in the IR (Ciardi et al. 1998; Skidmore et al. 2002), so we deduce that the travelling wave responsible for the QPO dip obscures only the hotter central region of the bright spot, and not the extended cooler region.

To be consistent with the interpretation used earlier, we should classify the 27.87 s modulation as an lpDNO, related to rotation of the main body of the primary, not a DNO. The 27.87/28.95 s pair constitutes a double lpDNO. More specifically, WZ Sge is an IP of the DQ Her subclass (Warner 1995a), but is of lower Q than typical IPs.

#### 10.0.2 WZ Sge in Outburst

The 2001 superoutburst of WZ Sge provided an opportunity to observe how the short period oscillations behave during times of greatly increased $`\dot{M}`$. DNOs were detected only one month after the peak of outburst (Knigge et al. 2002; hereafter K2002), and later from two to five months after peak brightness (Welsh et al. 2003; hereafter W2003). As pointed out by the latter authors, the temperature of the primary fell from 29 000 K to 18 000 K during that time, yet the modulations did not change their character appreciably – this is a characteristic of DNOs rather than white dwarf pulsations.

The earliest observed oscillations (K2002) have periods near 15 s and show changes in amplitude and phase that are characteristic of DNO behaviour. There were also weak oscillations with periods near 6.5 s. In the later observations (W2003) the 28.96 s oscillation was present with some stability, but not the 27.87 s one. In addition, there was an 18 s oscillation of lower coherence, characteristic of a DNO.

If we allow that the magnetic field of WZ Sge is barely strong enough to couple the white dwarf’s exterior to its interior (i.e. $`B5\times 10^5`$ G) then we would expect that the very large $`\dot{M}`$ during superoutburst would squash the magnetosphere to the surface of the primary. But field enhancement in the equatorial belt could allow at least some of the accretion to be magnetically channelled. The equatorial belt would start with the spin period of the primary itself, i.e. 27.87 s, and would be spun up from there – perhaps producing the 15 s and 18 s DNOs, which appear correlated in the usual way with luminosity of the system. For lpDNOs of 28 s we would expect, from the relationships found for other dwarf novae (Section 3), DNOs at about one quarter of that period – i.e. 6 s, which is close to the observed 6.5 s DNOs.

Therefore, phenomenologically, WZ Sge behaves in outburst in ways similar to other weakly magnetic dwarf novae. Nevertheless, the appearance of the reprocessed signal at 28.96 s so early in the outburst decline, which implies the existence of the 744 s travelling wave in the model outlines above, requires its excitation process and period to be amazingly robust – and apparently independent of the $`\dot{M}`$ passing through the inner disc.

## 11 A CONNECTION WITH X-RAY BINARIES

Many of the phenomena exhibited by CVs also appear in X-Ray binaries (XRBs), which have neutron stars and black hole (BH) candidates accreting from companions. Rapid modulations are among the common properties, though in the XRBs the signals appear at hard X-Ray energies where the flux is low and until recently the oscillations were only detectable in Fourier transforms of many thousands of cycles. An overview of QPOs in XRBs is given by van der Klis (2002).

Some specific similarities to CV behaviour are seen in the phase variations in the 5 Hz QPOs in the Rapid Burster (Dotani et al. 1990), the double QPOs at kHz frequencies, and the frequency dependence on accretion luminosity. But a striking result is that the ratio of low to high frequency QPOs that appear in the XRBs is close to the value 15 seen in CVs. By considering the CV QPOs and DNOs as low and high frequency QPOs we can place them on the same diagram as for XRBs – Fig. 15. The correlation is seen to extend over nearly six orders of magnitude in frequency. This does not necessarily mean that exactly the same physics is in operation over the entire range, but certainly the same ratio of time scales appears everywhere.

Furthermore, during X-Ray bursts oscillations are often seen that lie between the high and low frequency QPOs. They vary in frequency and are thought to be caused by hot expanding gas on the surface of the neutron star that slips relative to the underlying surface (van der Klis 2000). They are closely related to the rotation period of the star itself and thus resemble the lpDNOs in CVs described in this review.

A recent important development in the study of X-Ray Binary QPOs is an analysis of the signal in the neutron star system 4U1608-52 (Barret, Olive & Kluzniak 2003) in which much higher time resolution has been achieved. What had been thought to be high frequency (800 Hz) QPOs with $`Q10`$ have now been shown to be short (hundreds of cycles) trains of higher ($`Q`$ up to 103) coherence with a duty cycle $``$ 15% and jumps in frequency of up to $``$ 0.5% between the bursts of QPOs. Apart from the implication that the QPO amplitudes are typically $``$ 8 times what had previously been deduced, the high stability for so many cycles eliminates many models of X-Ray QPOs (e.g., blobs of accreting gas that would be sheared out of existence after only $``$ 10 cycles). During the phases of high stability the average profile of the QPO is closely sinusoidal.

Consequently the high frequency X-Ray QPOs now look even more like CV DNOs – with period jumps after $``$ 100 cycles. Among the CVs there are examples of DNOs that are present for only part of the time (i.e., a short duty cycle), but also ones (e.g. VW Hyi just before quiescence) where high amplitude is maintained for at least thousands of cycles.

The similarities between CV, neutron star and BH rapid oscillations may have profound implications. Robertson & Leiter (2003), in gathering evidence that some BHs may have magnetic moments, cite these similarities in their compilation. They reason that BHs forming from magnetic stars are prevented within a Hubble time from reaching their event horizons by the radiation pressure that results from pair-creation in the greatly compressed and intensified internal magnetic fields. If this is the case, then magnetic stars collapsing towards the BH end point behave temporarily like over-massive neutron stars, and have more in common with magnetic neutron stars and white dwarfs than has been previously realised.

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am greatly indebted to my co-workers in this field – Dr Patrick Woudt, Claire Blackman and Retha Pretorius – for communicating results in advance of publication, and for assistance. Our observations have largely been obtained at the Sutherland station of the South African Astronomical Observatory. I thank Steve Potter for helpful comments. My research is supported by funds from the University of Cape Town. I acknowledge the hospitality of the Nicolaus Copernicus Center in Warsaw, where part of this Review was written.

Notes Table 1: DN = dwarf nova, N = nova, NL = nova-like, AMC = AM CVn star,  A period approximately half this was also observed.
The References are additional to those given in Table 8.2 of Warner (1995).
1 Patterson 1981; 2 Mauche & Robinson 2001; 3 Woudt & Warner 2002a; 4 Warner & Woudt 2002; 5 Warner, Woudt & Pretorius 2003; 6 Marsh & Horne 1998; 7 M. L. Pretorius (unpublished); 8 Knigge et al. 2002; 9 Skidmore et al. 2002; 10 Skidmore et al. 1999; 11 Patterson et al. 1998; 12 Welsh et al. 1997; 13 Skidmore et al. 1997; 14 Provencal & Nather 1997; 15 Mauche 1996a; 16 Mauche 1997a; 17 Knigge et al. 1998; 18 Steeghs et al. 2001; 19 Nogami, Kato & Baba 2002; 20 Morales-Rueda, Still & Roche 1996; 21 Morales-Rueda, Still & Roche 1999; 22 Kato et al. 2002; 23 Pavlenko & Shugarov 1999; 24 Kraicheva et al. 1999a; 25 Williams & Hiltner 1984; 26 Long et al. 1996; 27 Smith, Dhillon & Marsh 1998; 28 Rodriguez-Gil & Martinez-Pais 2002; 29 Remillard et al. 1994; 30 Bruch, Steiner & Gneiding 2000; 31 Patterson et al. 2002a; 32 Rodriguez-Gil et al. 2002; 33 Kraicheva et al. 1999b; 34 Patterson et al. 2001; 35 Taylor et al. 1999; 36 Rodriguez-Gil et al. 2001; 37 Woudt & Warner 2003; 38 Woudt & Warner 2002b; 39 Kato 2002; 40 Szkody et al. 2001; 41 Nogami et al. 1998; 42 Patterson et al. 1995. 43 Skillman, Patterson & Thorstensen 1995; 44 Kato & Starkey 2002; 45 Provencal & Nather 1997; 46 Araujo-Betancor 2003; 47 Welsh et al. 2003; 48 Chen et al. 2001; 49 Uemura et al. 2001; 50 Patterson et al. 2002b; 51 Tremko et al. 1996; 52 Tovmassian 1988; 53 Mauche 2002; 54 Kato et al. 2003; 55 Patterson et al. 1979; 56 Skillman et al. 1999; 57 Patterson et al. 1992; 58 Provencal et al. 1995; 59 Patterson et al. 2002c; 60 Kato et al. 2004; 61 J. Patterson (private communication).