Cyclotron Modeling of the Polar CP Tuc

Abstract

CP Tuc (AX J2315-592) is a polar for which two accretion geometries have been put forward. They differ in the location of the accretion column on the white-dwarf surface. In this study, we present new multiband optical photometric and polarimetric data to study the post-shock position. These data are used as input for CYCLOPS, our new code for modeling the cyclotron emission from post-shock regions of polars. CYCLOPS has a full 3-D treatment of the radiative transfer and is a powerful tool to study the physical properties of the emitting region. We find reasonable fits for the optical data of CP Tuc in both scenarios. We suggest that it should be possible to constrain the location of the base of the accreting column by modeling the X-ray light curves.