The Long-Period Radio Transient and Cataclysmic Variable ASKAP J1745-5051: Evidence for a 15,000 K White Dwarf and a Sub-Stellar Donor

Long-period transients (LPTs) are radio sources that exhibit polarized periodic radio bursts on time-scales of minutes to hours. At least some LPTs are associated with white dwarfs (WDs) in close binary systems. However, the evolutionary connection between LPTs and accreting WDs (aka cataclysmic variables'' [CVs]) has been unclear. The recent discovery of ASKAP J1745-5051 has been a breakthrough: this system is a bona-fide LPT that is also an X-ray emitting magnetic CV (mCV) with P_orb ~ 1.3 hrs. Here, we construct the broad-band far-UV through near-IR SED for the system and show that it is well described by two components: a 15,000 K WD (which dominates the far-UV through optical bands) and a sub-stellar (M_2 ~ 0.05~M_sun, T_eff ~ 1800 K) donor star (which dominates in the K_s band). Our SED-fitting results differ from those in the discovery paper for four reasons: (i) we fix an issue with the treatment of reddening/extinction; (ii) we discard photometric measurements that are irreparably contaminated by an unrelated star located just 0.9" from the target; (iii) we add near-infrared brightness measurements obtained from PSF-fitting photometry on archival VISTA/VHS observations; (iv) we fit the data with synthetic spectra based on model atmospheres (rather than with blackbodies). The inferred WD temperature is reasonable for an accretion-heated primary in a short-period mCV. The sub-stellar nature of the donor suggests that the system is a "period bouncer" that has already evolved past the CV period minimum. The SED fit also yields a distance of d ~ 320 pc, only ~4x larger than that to the nearest confirmed mCV. Since the fraction of the sky swept out by the radio beam is likely to be small, systems like ASKAP J1745-5051 could make up a large percentage of mCVs. This may point towards a connection between LPTs and the missing’’ population of period bouncers among CVs.