High Speed UV Photometry of the AM Her Systems AM Her, VV Pup And V834 Cen, with the Hubble Space Telescope

Abstract

We have used the High Speed Photometer (HSP) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the magnetic cataclysmic variables VV Pup, AM Her, and V834 Cen in the UV (1400…3300 Å) with 0.01 s time resolution. We detected low frequency flickering in all three systems, and compare the time-scales with the predictions of King (1989). At higher frequencies we searched for shock oscillations from the accretion column(s) in these systems. The data were analyzed using the Gabor transform wavelet-like technique (Heil & Walnut 1989) to search for frequency evolution throughout each observation. Preliminary analysis suggests the detection of rapid UV quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in VV Pup at 0.74 Hz, and at 4.4 Hz in V834 Cen. As in ground based observations, our observations failed to yield any rapid QPOs in AM Her itself.