Radio emission from non-magnetic cataclysmic variables ( CVs , accreting white dwarfs ) could allow detailed studies of outflows and possibly accretion flows in these nearby , numerous and non-relativistic compact accretors .
Up to now , however , very few CVs have been detected in the radio .

We have conducted a VLA pilot survey of four close and optically-bright novalike CVs at 6 GHz , detecting three , and thereby doubling the number of radio detections of these systems .
RW Sex , V603 Aql and the old nova TT Ari were detected in both of the epochs , while V1084 Her was not detected ( to a 3 \sigma upper-limit of 7.8 \muJy beam ^ { -1 } ) .
These observations clearly show that the sensitivity of previous surveys was typically too low to detect these objects and that non-magnetic CVs can indeed be significant radio emitters .

The three detected sources show a range of properties , including flaring and variability on both short ( \sim 200 s ) and longer-term ( days ) time-scales , as well as circular polarization levels of up to 100 % .
The spectral indices range from steep to inverted ; TT Ari shows a spectral turnover at \sim 6.5 GHz , while the spectral index of V603 Aql flattened from \alpha = 0.54 \pm 0.05 to 0.16 \pm 0.08 ( F _ { \nu } \propto \nu ^ { \alpha } ) in the week between observations .
This range of properties suggests that more than one emission process can be responsible for the radio emission in non-magnetic CVs .
In this sample we find that individual systems are consistent with optically thick synchrotron emission , gyrosynchrotron emission or cyclotron maser emission .