Stokes imaging of the accretion region in magnetic cataclysmic variables - II. V347 Pav

Abstract

In this paper we present an objective map of the cyclotron emission region in a magnetic cataclysmic variable from polarimetric observations of the AM Her system V347 Pav. As the system parameters of V347 Pav (for example its inclination) have not been well determined, we describe an extension to Stokes imaging of Paper I which also searches the system parameter space. We show that the cyclotron emission from V347 Pav emanates from two areas on the white dwarf, one area consisting of two relatively large regions located at opposite footprints of the same field lines, and a much smaller region located above the orbital plane on the opposite face of the white dwarf. This is different from previous less objective techniques, in which two long, thin arc-shaped cyclotron emission regions were used to model the observed polarimetric variations.