The behavior of hydrogen shell burning in the accreted envelope of white dwarfs is studied, and the progress of hydrogen shell flashes and the resultant expansion of the envelope is examined. It is shown that the most important parameter of flash strength is the proper pressure P of the burning shell, which is defined in terms of the weight of the overlying layers. It is proved that expansion is more rapid and greater for greater P and that when P is low the shell flash is weak and the envelope settles in thermal equilibrium even before it expands to solar radius. When P is high enough, a nova explosion results; the necessary envelope mass for a nova is as large as 0.00001 solar masses. The thermal properties of shell burning and recurrent properties of shell flashes are discussed in order to predict how hydrogen shell burning proceeds on an accreting white dwarf.
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Masayuki Y. Fujimoto (1982) studied this question.