CP puppis: Another V1500 Cyg?

Abstract

As first pointed out by Warner (1985), the overall properties of CP Pup and V1500 Cyg are very similar: both were very fast, very large amplitude novae with ~ 0.3 mag photometric humps at roughly the orbital period. Neither variation is strictly periodic (Patterson 1979; Warner 1985). Variable circular polarization (with period slightly different from the orbital period) has been found in V1500 Cyg showing that its white dwarf is strongly magnetic and has broken synchronism with the secondary star (Stockman, Schmidt & Lamb 1988). In contrast, no circular polarization has been found in CP Pup. Nonetheless, does the slight difference between the photometric and spectroscopic periods indicate it is also a magnetic system (Warner 1985; Bianchini et al. 1985a)? New photometric and spectroscopic data for CP Pup are reported which resolve the aliases and confusion in the periods found by Bianchini et al. (1985a,b), Warner (1985) and Duerbeck et al. (1987) and allow an examination of the evidence for its magnetic nature.