STRUCTURE OF INHOMOGENEOUS ACCRETION SHOCKS

We investigate the structure of inhomogeneous accretion shocks in magn etic white dwarfs. We find that bremsstrahlung cooling still plays an important role in determining the structure of the post-shock region, even when its cooling timescale is much longer than the cyclotron cool ing timescale at the shock surface. Our calculations also show that a substantial amount of the accretion energy is dissipated at the base o f the post-shock region through emission of bremsstrahlung radiation.