Tomasz Nowakowski is a member of the physics.org community.
Astronomers from the California Institute of Technology and other places have discovered two new polars by analyzing the data from the Spektr-RG space observatory. There is a paper on the arXiv pre-print repository.
There is a white dwarf and a normal star companion in a cataclysmic variable. They drop back down to a quiescent state after increasing in brightness. There is a very strong magnetic field in the white dwarfs that distinguishes polars from other CVs.
Two new polars have been found by a team of astronomer led by Caltech's Antonio C Rodriguez. The eROSITA Final Equatorial Depth Survey (eFEDS) catalog was cross matched to the ZTF Data Release 5 (DR5).
The researchers found two polars through a cross match of the eFEDS dataset and ZTF archival photometry.
At a distance of 3,260 light years away from the Earth, ZTFJ0850+0443 is an eclipse polar. The companion star's mass was estimated to be less than the white dwarf's. The results suggest that the ZTFJ0850+0443 is a low-field polar.
ZTFJ0926+0105 is a non-eclipsing polar with an elapsed time of about 1.5 hours. The magnetic field strength of polars is at least 26MG. The team couldn't measure the mass of the white dwarf because it wasn't eclipsing.
The eFEDS survey is important for the detection of new cataclysmic variables, according to the astronomer. They said that it will be possible to get precise luminosities of the newfound polars by using the Gaia satellite. The June 13th publication of the Gaia Data Release 3 may be useful in this situation.
The scientists noted that "Schwope et al (2021) identified an eclipse polar through an eROSITA/SRG cross match with Gaia."
The research done by Rodriguez's team is part of a larger analysis. It is possible to overcome observational biases in previous searches for cataclysmic variables with the help of such studies.
More information: Antonio C. Rodriguez et al, Discovery of Two Polars from a Crossmatch of ZTF and the SRG/eFEDS X-ray Catalog. arXiv:2206.04714v1 [astro-ph.HE], arxiv.org/abs/2206.04714There is a science network.
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