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VLT Phase Resolved Optical Spectroscopy of the Ultra-Compact Binary HM Cnc

A 321.5 s modulation was discovered in 1999 in the X-ray light curve of HM Cnc. In 2001 and 2002, optical photometric and spectroscopic observations revealed that HM Cnc is a very blue object with no intrinsic absorptions but broad (FWHM 1500 km s^-1) low equivalent width emission lines (EW 1-6A), which were first identified with the HeII Pickering series. The combination of X-ray and optical observations pictures HM Cnc as a double degenerate binary hosting two white dwarfs, and possibly being the shortest orbital period binary discovered so far. The present work is aimed at studying the orbital motion of the two components by following the variations of the shape, centroid and intensity of the emission lines through the orbit. In February 2007, we carried out the first phase resolved optical spectroscopic study with the VLT/FORS2 in the High Time Resolution (HIT) mode, yielding five phase bins in the 321 s modulation. Despite the low SNR, the data show that the intensity of the three most prominent emission lines, already detected in 2001, varies with the phase. These lines are detected at phases 0.2-0.6 where the optical emission peaks, and marginally detected or not detected at all elsewhere. Moreover, the FWHM of the emission lines in the phase resolved spectra is smaller, by almost a factor 2, than that in the the phase-averaged 2001 spectrum. Our results are consistent with both the pulsed optical component and emission lines originating in the same region which we identify with the irradiated surface of the secondary. Moreover, regardless of the origin of the un-pulsed optical continuum, we note that the EWs of the emission lines might be up to -15 / -25A, larger than thought before; these values are more similar to those detected in cataclysmic variables. All the findings further confirm that the 321s modulation observed in HM Cnc is the orbital period of the system, the shortest known to date.