IPHAS J190812.63+045728.1: A deeply eclipsing, X-ray bright cataclysmic variable with frequent outbursts

RESUMO

We present a multi-wavelength characterization of IPHAS J190812.63+045728.1. Independently discovered by us after being serendipitously observed by XMM-Newton, followed up with optical photometry with SPARC4/OPD and spectroscopy with GMOS/Gemini South, and exploring archival TESS and ZTF observations, we reveal the system to be an eclipsing accreting white dwarf (WD) system with an orbital period of 5.073 h. The deep optical and flat-bottomed X-ray eclipses completely occult the WD and the accretion disk, providing a model-independent, uncontaminated view of the donor star which we classify as an M2.3 dwarf with a mass of $\sim 0.50\,M_\odot$. The system is a modestly luminous (L$_{x;0.3-10 keV} \sim$ 1.7 $\times$ 10$^{32}$ erg s$^{-1}$) hard thermal (consistent with a shock-heated plasma cooling down from $k$T $\sim$ 26 keV) X-ray source. While these X-ray properties are typical of low luminosity intermediate polars (IPs), long-term archival photometry reveals frequent, large-amplitude outbursts ($\Delta m \sim 2$ mag in the ZTF $zr$ band) that are the typical characteristics of dwarf novae, and would be unusual for IPs. The weakness of the HeII $\lambda$4686 emission line does not allow us to decide between the IP and the dwarf nova scenarios. On the other hand, the optical and X-ray light curves do not exhibit periodic variations caused by the WD rotation. If the system is indeed an IP, the accretion geometry is likely unusual while the dwarf nova-like outbursts indicating disk instabilities would make IPHAS J190812.63+045728.1 a benchmark for testing disk instability models in the presence of magnetically truncated accretion disks. Otherwise, the system is a dwarf nova with X-ray properties at the extreme end of its class.