High-dispersion spectroscopy of AE Aquarii – II. Evidence of material orbiting the primary star

Abstract

ABSTRACT We present a second paper related to the analyses of high-dispersion spectroscopic observations of the magnetic cataclysmic variable AE Aquarii. We focus our efforts on the study of the emission lines and their radial velocities. We detect a sinusoidal behaviour, in several of the observing runs, with variable amplitudes. Of those runs presented, the velocity curve of 2000 August shows less instability in the emission material. In this case, we obtain K1 = 114 ± 8 km s−1, which we take as our best value for the radial velocity of the primary. This result is consistent within 2σ with previously published values obtained using indirect methods. We interpret this consistency as observational evidence of material orbiting the rapidly rotating primary star. We present a Doppler tomography study, which shows that the H α emission is primarily concentrated within a blob in the lower left quadrant, a structure similar to that predicted by the propeller model. However, for 2000 August, we find the emission centred around the position of the white dwarf, which supports the possibility of the K1 value of this run of being a valid approximation of the orbital motion of the white dwarf.