Using a telescope system called the Mobile Astronomical System of Telescope-Robots (MASTER), an international team of astronomers discovered a new eclipsing cataclysmic variable. This newly discovered object, designated MASTER OT J061451.70–272535.5, probably belongs to the polar subclass.
Cataclysmic variables are binary star systems consisting of a white dwarf and a normal companion star. Their brightness increases irregularly a large number of times, and then drops back to its original value. Polars are a subclass of cataclysmic variables, distinguished from other objects of this class by the very powerful magnetic field of their white dwarfs.
Although up to 140 polars have been discovered to date, only 33 of them have been identified as eclipsing systems. Therefore, the new addition of the still very short list of eclipsed polars is of great importance for a deeper understanding of the nature of these objects.
In a new paper, a group of astronomers led by Hannes Breytenbach from the South African Astronomical Observatory, South Africa, announces the discovery of a new cataclysmic variable with a magnetic field, which, according to these researchers, is a synchronized polar. This source shows eclipses with a period of 2.08 hours, during which the brightness drops by about 50 percent, and then gradually returns to its original level. Then comes a deeper decline (60-80 percent) in brightness with an even slower return to the original level.
According to the authors, the light curve with such characteristics may belong to the system in which the primary eclipse of the accretionary “hot spot” on the surface of a white dwarf with a powerful magnetic field of the accreted material occurs. Then a secondary eclipse occurs — an eclipse of both the hottest point and the stream of accreting material that it partially illuminates by the second star of the system, the red dwarf who is the donor of the material.
New cataclysmic variable opened
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