We use a two-temperature hydrodynamical formulation to determine thetemperature and density structures of the post-shock accretion flows inmagnetic cataclysmic variables (mCVs) and calculate the corresponding X-rayspectra. The effects of two-temperature flows are significant for systems witha massive white dwarf and a strong white-dwarf magnetic field. Our calculationsshow that two-temperature flows predict harder keV spectra than one-temperatureflows for the same white-dwarf mass and magnetic field. This result isinsensitive to whether the electrons and ions have equal temperature at theshock but depends on the electron-ion exchange rate, relative to the rate ofradiative loss along the flow. White-dwarf masses obtained by fitting the X-rayspectra of mCVs using hydrodynamic models including the two-temperature effectswill be lower than those obtained using single-temperature models. The bias ismore severe for systems with a massive white dwarf.
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