Signs of a dead disk in AE Aquarii

The mass-exchange picture in the close binary AE Aqr is discussed in the frame of the pulsar-like white dwarf model (Ikhsanov \cite{I3}, \cite{I4}). It is shown that within this approach a dead disk around the white dwarf magnetosphere is expected. The disk forms during (and/or just after) the outburst associated with the white dwarf spin-up -> spin-down state transition. In the current epoch the inner and the outer radii of the disk are evaluated as 5.5x 10¹⁰ cm and 8 x 10¹⁰ cm, respectively, and the average mass-exchange rate in the system is 4.4 x 10¹⁶ g s^-1. About a half of the accretion energy is released in the boundary layer at the inner edge of the disk in the optical-UV (about 80%) and soft X-ray (about 20%) spectral domains. The mass exchange between the components is governed by the stream-fed mechanism of mass transfer through the L_1 point. The plasma inflowing from the secondary interacts with the outer edge of the dead disk and streams out from the system mainly at phases 0.25/0.75. The velocity of outflowing plasma in quiescence lies within the interval 380 /550 km s^-1 and its temperature is about 10⁴ K. The other parts of the dead disk are relatively cool ~ (2/3) x 10³ K and contribute to the system radiation in the IR spectral region.