A study of a high resolution IUE spectrum of AM Canum Venaticorum

We have obtained the first high resolution IUE spectrum of the helium-rich, cataclysmic variable star AM CVn. The spectrum is greatly underexposed, but we can still detect both wide and narrow line profiles. We report broad, shortward-shifted, P-Cygni-like absorption and in some cases emission lines in the far UV high ionization resonance lines of C, N, O, and Si, but the profiles are considerably disk/boundary layer outflows, absorption disk continuum light in H-rich CVs. The highest ionizations show evidence of a narrow jet or conical flow. For other, lower ionized lines, we find some evidence of a stellar origin. The broad He II (lambda 1640 A) absorption profile with blue shifted emission core has a remarkably similar overall structure to the He II (lambda 1640 A) broad absorption trough in the IUE spectrum of the prototypical cool DO white dwarf HZ 21. The sharp absorption lines seem most convincingly in the resonance doublets of N V (lambda 1238 A, lambda 1242 A) and C IV (lambda 1548 A, lambda 1550 A) and in He II (lambda 1640 A) exhibit a precise velocity coincidence. These sharp features are almost certainly due to circumbinary matter because they are obviously unaffected by the rapid orbital motion (or rapid stellar rotation) in this short period system during the long (9.3 hour) IUE echelle exposure. Our observations support an evolution through shell episodes of a close binary system which ends up with an expanding envelope as seen for HZ 21, and suggests one possible evolutionary channel for production of DOs (DBs).