The serendipituous discovery of a short-period eclipsing polar in 2XMMp

TL;DR

This paper reports the serendipitous discovery of a new eclipsing polar, a magnetic cataclysmic variable, with a 92-minute orbital period, expanding the known population of such systems and providing insights into their accretion processes.

Contribution

The discovery of 2XMMp J131223.4+173659 as a new eclipsing polar with unique spectral characteristics and a short orbital period, confirmed through multi-wavelength observations.

Findings

Identified a new eclipsing polar with a 92-minute orbital period.

Found no evidence of a soft X-ray component despite high accretion.

System likely has a one-pole accretion geometry.

Abstract

We report the serendipituous discovery of the new eclipsing polar 2XMMp J131223.4+173659. Its striking X-ray light curve attracted immediate interest when we were visually inspecting the source products of the 2XMMp catalogue. This light curve revealed its likely nature as a magnetic cataclysmic variable of AM Herculis (or polar) type with an orbital period of ~92 min, which was confirmed by follow-up optical spectroscopy and photometry. 2XMMp J131223.4+173659 probably has a one-pole accretion geometry. It joins the group of now nine objects that show no evidence of a soft component in their X-ray spectra despite being in a high accretion state, thus escaping ROSAT/EUVE detection. We discuss the likely accretion scenario, the system parameters, and the spectral energy distribution.