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High-Speed Optical Spectroscopy of a Cataclysmic Variable Wind: BZ Camelopardalis

BZ Cam is the first cataclysmic variable star with an accretion disk wind evident in its optical spectrum. The wind was found by Thorstensen, who discovered intermittent P Cygni profiles occurring simultaneously in He I 5876 Angstroms and H alpha. We have since obtained spectra with 0.4-Angstroms/pixel dispersion and 60-s time resolution. We find a wind much faster and more rapidly variable than the radiatively accelerated winds of OB stars, Wolf-Rayet stars, or luminous blue variables. Instead of showing blob ejection, the whole wind of BZ Cam appears to turn on and off. We use this to measure the acceleration law of a CV wind for the first time. The velocity increases linearly with time, attaining blue edge velocities near -3000 km/s, and absorption velocities near -1700 km/s, in 6 to 8 min after starting near rest. We also find a subsequent linear deceleration to nearly rest in 30 to 40 min, perhaps an effect of dilution as the wind expands. No periodicity from rotational outflow is obvious. This wind is erratic and incessantly variable, and perhaps bipolar and face-on, but not highly collimated. The P Cygni absorption events trace out sawtooth waves, occurring within 30 to 40 white dwarf radii from the disk. This is the approximate size of the disk, as well as the disk/wind transition region recently postulated by Knigge and Drew. We estimate a distance of 830 +/- 160 pc, and an orbital inclination i such that 12 < i(degrees) < 40.