Unveiling the white dwarf in the eclipsing polar HU Aquarii

¹ Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP) An der Sternwarte 16 14482 Potsdam, Germany
² Department of Physics, University of Warwick Gibbet Hill Road Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
³ Astrophysics Research Cluster, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Sheffield Sheffield S3 7RH, UK
⁴ Department of Visual and Data-Centric Computing, Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB) Takustr. 7 14195 Berlin, Germany
⁵ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias E-38205 La Laguna Tenerife, Spain

^★ Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Received: 18 September 2025
Accepted: 28 November 2025

Abstract

We present an analysis of high-speed u- and r-band photometry of the eclipsing polar HU Aqr that was obtained with ULTRACAM mounted on the VLT. The observations were performed during a low state, permitting us for the first time to determine the contact points of the white dwarf. Using LCURVE we could determine its size, and hence mass, with a direct method and with unprecedented accuracy. We determined the mass of the white dwarf as 0.78 ± 0.02 M_⊙, the mass ratio Q = M_WD/M_sec = 4.59, and the orbital inclination i = 87.​​° 4 ± 0.​​° 9. An extended warm region with a central temperature of ∼33 000 K was observed in the u-band at the location of the previous high-state accretion spot. Weak accretion was ongoing in the low state that led to cyclotron emission that could best be studied with the r-band data. It has a diameter of only 3° to 4° and is located much closer to the binary meridian than the accretion-heated region studied in the u-band. The longitudinal shift of the two accretion regions is of order 30°, due to early and late coupling of accreted matter onto the magnetic field lines in low and high accretion states, respectively. The low-state cyclotron-emitting region has a vertical extent of 0.005 − 0.016 R_WD, a value that seems to be correlated to the instantaneous accretion rate.