A Catalogue of Orbital Periods of Cataclysmic Variables and Candidates from TESS Observations

TL;DR

This paper systematically analyzes TESS data to compile a comprehensive catalogue of orbital periods for 910 cataclysmic variables, validating, revising, and discovering periods to enhance understanding of these systems.

Contribution

It introduces the Cataclysmic Variable Confident Catalogue (CCC), providing new orbital period measurements and corrections for a large sample of CVs using automated analysis of TESS data.

Findings

Confirmed orbital periods for 215 systems consistent with previous data.

Revised 39 orbital periods based on TESS observations.

Identified new orbital periods for systems previously lacking measurements.

Abstract

We present a systematic analysis of 2544 cataclysmic variable systems and related candidates observed by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), with the aim of compiling a comprehensive catalogue of orbital periods. Using 2-minute photometric time-series data, we applied an automated algorithm to generate Lomb-Scargle periodograms and identify the most significant coherent periodic signals, which were subsequently verified through visual inspection. This process yielded a confident sample of 910 sources exhibiting at least one periodic signal, hereafter referred to as the Cataclysmic Variable Confident Catalogue (CCC). For each object, we report the most likely orbital period together with additional periodic features such as spin modulations and/or superhump signals when present. To assess consistency with previously published measurements, we cross-matched the CCC with the Ritter \& Kolb catalogue, identifying 300 overlapping systems, of which 215 showed full agreement with the R\&K orbital periods, while 39 displayed discrepancies for which the R\&K values were revised based on our TESS measurements and supporting evidence from the literature. Overall, the CCC provides a means to validate known orbital periods, propose corrections where necessary, and offer new determinations for systems with previously unknown periods, thereby supporting a more complete and reliable characterisation of the cataclysmic variable population.