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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
We use two dimensional Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics simulations to investigate the the Tidal Resonance Instability (TRI) model for superhumps in SU UMa stars.
In the TRI model, superhumps are the signature of an eccentric disk being periodically stressed by the binary system’s rotating tidal field. A slow prograde motion of the disk in the inertial frame is then responsible for the superhump period slightly exceeding the binary orbital period. The disk eccentricity is caused by a 3:1 resonance between orbits in the disk and the orbit of the binary itself. The development of the TRI model is due mainly to Whitehurst (1988), Hirose & Osaki (1990) and Lubow (1991a). Lubow in particular carried out a nonlinear mode analysis of a fluid disk’s response to a weak tidal field and identified the feedback mechanism responsible for disk eccentricity growth.