Observational Studies of Cataclysmic Variables and Related Objects

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Robinson proposes to continue observations of cataclysmic variable stars with the help of post-doctoral associate Allen Shafter. Photometry of eclipse-type light variations will be used to learn about accretion disks. Photometry of rapid light variations will probably be interpreted in terms of dynamic phenomena at the edges of accretion disks. Spectroscopy will yield radial velocities. Careful subsidiary measurements will be needed to establish just what part of the binary system the velocities refer to. Some additional projects are listed. Many stars occur in pairs, moving around each other in hours or days. As they age, one star may lose mass to the other, sometimes in highly dramatic and explosive fashion. This program is to observe one category of such binary stars with mass transfer, called cataclysmic variables. They consist of an ordinary and an Earth-sized star plus a disk of gas slowly swirling toward the latter. These systems are the most observable of the mass-transferring binaries. Their observation will lay the groundwork for understanding the more complex and more explosive systems.