Generation of magnetohydrodynamic waves in white dwarfs

Mechanical energy fluxes generated in H-rich and He-rich convective zones of white dwarfs were calculated for a wide range of effective temperatures. In these computations the author assumes that convection and turbulent spectrum are independent of the magnetic field. The presence of the magnetic field causes an important change in the generation of an acoustic flux in the convective zone and introduces new energy carrying modes - the #agnetohydrodynamic waves. New estimates of the mechanical energy fluxes give significantly higher values than those previously given for the white dwarf. Consequently, the author predicts higher X-ray luminosities that should be observed with the present-day techniques. It is also shown that the mechanism of X-ray generation plays a negligible role in the white dwarf companion in a cataclysmic binary system.