{"paper":{"title":"Evidence for the White Dwarf Nature of Mira B","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"astro-ph.SR","authors_text":"J. L. Sokoloski (Columbia), Lars Bildsten (KITP, UCSB)","submitted_at":"2010-09-13T20:08:45Z","abstract_excerpt":"The nature of the accreting companion to Mira --- the prototypical pulsating asymptotic giant branch star --- has been a matter of debate for more than 25 years. Here we use a quantitative analysis of the rapid optical brightness variations from this companion, Mira B, which we observed with the Nickel telescope at Lick Observatory, to show that it is a white dwarf (WD). The amplitude of aperiodic optical variations on time scales of minutes to tens of minutes (approximately 0.2 mag) is consistent with that of accreting WDs in cataclysmic variables on these same time scales. It is significantl"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"1009.2509","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}