The disk vanishes

Abstract

Recently published observations of VY Scl stars in their low, long-intermediate and high states confirm our model (Hameury & Lasota 2002) according to which accretion disks in such systems must vanish when their temperature corresponds to thermally unstable configurations. An observational confirmation of the hypothesis that the disk disappearance is caused by magnetic effects would have important consequences for cataclysmic variable evolution models.

3 pages, submitted to ApJ Letters