Astron. Astrophys. 327, 183-190 (1997)

1. Introduction

AM Herculis binaries (polars) have a strong and highly variable soft X-ray flux and can, therefore, easily be selected from the bulk of the sources detected in the ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS). Our optical identification of bright, soft, high galactic latitude RASS sources led to the discovery of several new polars providing a significantly improved basis for the study of accretion phenomena in close-binary systems containing white dwarfs with strong magnetic fields, i.e. 7-230 MG (Beuermann & Burwitz 1995 , Beuermann et al. 1995 , Schwope 1995 , Warner 1995 , Beuermann 1997 , and references therein).

In this paper we report the discovery of further two AM Herculis systems, RX J2022.6-3954 and RX J0132.7-6554 (henceforth 2022-39 and 0132-65) which we have identified with the respective V 19 and V 20 mag optical counterparts (see Figs. 1 and 2). Here, we present the analysis of our X-ray data (ROSAT survey and pointed observations) and optical follow-up data (CCD photometry and time resolved spectroscopy) and discuss the importance of these short-period, high-field, close-binary systems in the context of the evolution of magnetic CVs.

Fig. 1. V-filter CCD image centered on = , = , the position of the V 19 mag optical counterpart of the RASS X-ray source RX J2022.6-3954 . The uncertainty of the X-ray position is given by the 95% confidence () error circle.

Fig. 2. White-light CCD image centered on = , = , the position of the V 20 mag optical counterpart of the RASS X-ray source RX J0132.7-6554 . The uncertainty of the X-ray position is given by the 95% confidence () error circle.

© European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1997

Online publication: April 8, 1998
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