Erupting Dwarf Novae in the Large Magellanic Cloud

We report the first likely detections of erupting dwarf novae (DNe) in an external galaxy: the Large Magellanic Cloud. Six candidates were isolated from approximately a million stars observed every second night over 11 nights with the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory 8K × 8K Mosaic2 CCD imager. Artificial dwarf nova and completeness tests suggest that we are seeing only the brightest of the LMC DNe, probably SS Cygni–like cataclysmic variables (CVs), but possibly SU UMa type cataclysmics undergoing superoutbursts. We derive crude but useful limits on the LMC DN surface density and on the number of DNe in the LMC. Many thousands of CVs in the Magellanic Clouds can be discovered and characterized with 8 m class telescopes.