The Optically Thick Rotating Magnetic Wind from a Massive White Dwarf Merger Product. II. Axisymmetric Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations

Abstract

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 M ̇ . We confirm that the wind properties for σ ≡ Φ * 2 Ω * 2 / M ̇ v esc 3 ≳ 1 significantly deviate from those of the spherical Parker wind, where v esc is the escape velocity at stellar surface. For such a rotating magnetic wind sequence, we find (i) a quasiperiodic mass eruption triggered by magnetic reconnection along with the equatorial plane and (ii) a scaling relation for the spin-down torque T ≈ ( 1 / 2 ) × 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.