An Empirical Correlation of Tmax–MWD of Dwarf Novae and the Average White Dwarf Mass in Cataclysmic Variables in the Galactic Bulge

The mean white dwarf (WD) mass in the Galactic bulge cataclysmic variables (CVs) was measured by applying the shock temperature-WD mass correlation of magnetic cataclysmic variables (mCVs) to the Galactic bulge X-ray emission (GBXE) spectra. However, the resulting mean WD mass is lower than that of the local CVs. This discrepancy could be explained by the dominating sources in the GBXE, which are non-mCVs instead of mCVs. In this work, we conduct a thorough investigation of the X-ray spectra of local DNe from the Suzaku archives and derive semi-empirical correlations between the shock temperature Tmax, the flux ratio of Fe xxvi–Lyα to Fe xxv–Heα lines, and WD mass for quiescent, nonmagnetic CVs. By applying these correlations to the GBXE, we derive the average WD mass of CVs in the Galactic bulge to be 0.81 ± 0.07M⊙. This value is consistent with previous optical measurements of WD mass in local CVs.