Eclipse mapping of the accretion stream in UZ Fornacis

Abstract

We present a new method to map the surface brightness of the accretion streams in AM Herculis systems from observed light curves. Extensive tests of the algorithm show that it reliably reproduces the intensity distribution of the stream for data with a signal-to-noise ratio ga5 . As a first application, we map the accretion stream emission of \Line{C}{iv}{1550} in the polar UZ Fornacis using HST FOS high state spectra. We find three main emission regions along the accretion stream: (1) On the ballistic part of the accretion stream, (2) on the magnetically funneled stream near the primary accretion spot, and (3) on the magnetically funneled stream at a position above the stagnation region. The observational part of this work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained from the data Archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS~5-26555. These observations are associated with proposal ID~4013.