Effects of gravity on the structure of post-shock accretion flows in magnetic cataclysmic variables

We calculate the temperature and density structure of the hot post-shock plasma in magnetically confined accretion flows, including the gravitational potential. This avoids the inconsistency of previous calculations which assume that the height of the shock is negligible. We assume a stratified accretion column with 1D flow along the symmetry axis. We find that the calculations predict a lower shock temperature than previous calculations, with a flatter temperature profile with height. We revise previous determinations of the masses of the white dwarf primary stars, and find that for higher mass white dwarfs there is a general reduction in derived masses when the gravitational potential is included. This is because the spectrum from such flows is harder than that of previous prescriptions at intermediate energies.