Optically thick winds from degenerate dwarfs. I.

The peak of the new opacity around log T=5.2 due to iron lines is found to be strong enough to accelerate the winds even in very low iron abundance such as Z=0.001 for massive white dwarfs (>=0.8M_{sun}_). The old population novae show the slow light curve, the long X-ray turn-off time, the small expansion velocity and the small wind mass-loss rate.

The X-ray turn-off time is a good indicator of the white dwarf mass because of its strong dependence on the white dwarf mass and weak dependence on the populations. The white dwarf mass is estimated to be ~0.6M_{sun}_ for GQ Mus and ~1.0M_{sun}_ for V1974 Cyg. The systematic difference of the wind velocity is predicted between novae in globular clusters and in galactic disk.