Why Are the Secondary Stars in Polars So Normal?

We have used NIRSPEC on Keck II to obtain K-band spectroscopy of several magnetic cataclysmic variables. These data reveal that the secondary stars in these binary systems have spectra that are consistent with normal, late-type dwarfs in both their atomic and molecular line strengths, as well as in the slopes of their continua. This result is in stark contrast to the infrared spectra of their nonmagnetic cousins, nearly all of which show peculiar abundances, especially of CNO species and their isotopes. It appears that the evolutionary path taken by the secondary stars in magnetic systems differs from that for the nonmagnetic systems. We discuss the implications of this result.