[vsnet-alert 17163] IR Com outburst?

[Boris Gaensicke]

Dear All,

CRTS has reported a brightening of IR Com. This short-period
CV has been in a very long low state, which is usually only
observed among polars, the strongly magnetic CVs. All evidence
we have excludes a strong magnetic field on the WD in IR Com,
which begs the question how it managed to switch off for
more than 2 years (arXiv:1401.5055v2 <http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.5055v2>).

It's history of IR Com as a dwarf nova is not terribly well
documented, as far as I know only one outburst has been
well studied (2002PASJ...54...79K<http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002PASJ...54...79K>
).

Now that IR Com seems to be awakening, it seems a good
opportunity to give the star some more attention. If this
current brightening is a proper outburst, time-series
photometry would be very useful to search for superhumps
(which were so far never detected).

Best wishes,

Boris Gaensicke