Abstract

We conducted a time-resolved photometric campaign of helium dwarf nova, 2003aw, in 2004 May–June. 2003aw stayed at 14.7–15.7 mag for the first several days during this campaign, which is the plateau phase of this superoutburst. This variable then rapidly decayed to |$\sim 18.0 \,\mathrm{mag}$|⁠, still brighter by about 2 mag than its quiescence magnitude, and maintained this brightness for about 20 days, having short flares of |$\sim 2 \,\mathrm{mag}$|⁠. A long fading tail followed it. We detected superhumps with a period of 0.02357(4)d [= 2036(3)s] during the plateau phase. The whole light curve of the superoutburst in 2003aw, taking into account the present data and those in the literature, perfectly resembles that of the 1996–1997 superoutburst of the peculiar WZ Sge-type hydrogen-rich dwarf nova, EG Cnc.

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