Indirect imaging of polars

AbstractTomographic techniques of different flavour offer enormous diagnostic power for the analysis of magnetic cataclysmic binaries, particularly those of AM Herculis type, the so‐called polars. The three main ingredients of such systems, the donor star, the accretor and the accretion stream between the two stars, are investigated by Doppler tomography, Roche tomography and eclipse mapping methods. The indirect imaging methods reveal the structure, extent and ionization conditions in the accretion stream, they reveal the extent of the irradiation zone on the secondary star and constrain the mass ratio and the orbital inclination of the binary. We describe a new code for Roche tomography, the achievements and limitations of straight Doppler tomography and a new mapping technique tentatively called curtain tomography. This new technique will map emission line profiles to an accretion curtain making full use of the velocity and the photometric information. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)