U. Kolb et M. Dekool, THE PERIOD DISTRIBUTION OF CATACLYSMIC BINARIES EVOLVING WITHOUT MAGNETIC BRAKING, Astronomy and astrophysics, 279(1), 1993, pp. 5-8
We model a hypothetical subpopulation of cataclysmic binaries (CBs) wh
ich are driven exclusively by orbital angular momentum losses due to g
ravitational radiation, i.e. which do not experience magnetic braking.
Applying the computational tools developed by de Kool (1992) and Kolb
(1993) we synthesize the corresponding period histogram and compare i
t to the observed period distribution of AM Her systems, for which ''n
on magnetic braking'' models have been proposed recently. We find that
for standard model assumptions such a subpopulation does not fit main
features of the observed sample of AM Her stars.