AT 2020iko: A WZ Sge-type Dwarf Nova Candidate with an Anomalous Precursor Event

The ongoing Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) survey is generating a massive alert rate from a variety of optical transients and variable stars, which are being filtered down to subsets meeting user-specified criteria by broker systems such as the Arizona-NOIRLab Temporal Analysis and Response to Events System (ANTARES). In a beta implementation of the algorithm of Soraisam et al. on ANTARES, we flagged AT 2020iko from the ZTF real-time alert stream as an anomalous source. This source is located close to a red extended Sloan Digital Sky Survey source. In the first few epochs of detection, it exhibited a V-shaped brightness profile, preceded by nondetections both in ZTF and in the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae extending to 2014. Its full light curve shows a precursor event, followed by a main superoutburst and at least two rebrightenings. A low-resolution spectrum of this source points to a dwarf nova (DN) nature. Although some of the features of AT 2020iko indicate an SU UMa-type DN, its large amplitude, presence of rebrightenings, and inferred supercycle period of ≥6 yr are in favor of AT 2020iko being a new WZ Sge-type DN candidate, a subset of rare DNe consisting of extreme mass-ratio (