| What's cool about hot stars? Infrared observations of cataclysmic variables with the Spitzer Space Telescope (2008) | |||||||||||||
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| Cataclysmic variables have been extensively observed at optical, ultraviolet, and Xray wavelengths, where their white dwarf primary stars and bright accretion disks dominate their emitted luminosity. Comparatively little is known about the infrared properties of cataclysmic variables. The assumption that infrared observations would reveal only the “uninteresting” secondary star has been shown to be false: recent infrared observations of cataclysmic variables have instead shown that cool dust in these interacting binaries is possibly the most important contributor to their spectral energy distributions at long wavelengths. We present recent results from infrared observations of the cataclysmic variable EF Eridani obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope. | |||||||||||||
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