Observing Periodic Phenomena in Variable Stars and Cataclysmic Binary Stars

首席研究员已经组建并管理了一个小型望远镜的全球网络，称为后院天体物理学中心（CBA），它涉及专业和业余天文学家之间的合作，他们对灾难性变星（cv）和其他变星进行长期观测。他们的目标是了解这些双星系统的许多周期过程和长期行为。cv是一对相互靠近运行并交换物质的恒星，它们偶尔会显示出亮度的爆炸性增长。CBA中大约30名业余天文学家组成的核心网络监测cv的变化，积累了研究周期变化所需的长基线。CBA是一个长期成功的公民科学项目，业余天文学家为重要的科学研究成果做出了有意义和重大的贡献。首席研究员已经组装了CBA来研究周期性现象，特别是在cv中，具有无与伦比的时间采样。他们将继续发现轨道周期、超级驼峰周期、自旋周期、进动周期、闪烁准周期、矮新星准周期，以及一些难以解释或解释的神秘周期。由专业和业余天文学家组成的团队将研究CV人口，并在每个类别中发现更多的候选者，从而建立更完整的演化和人口统计数据。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The principal investigator has assembled and managed a global network of small telescopes, called the Center for Backyard Astrophysics (CBA), which involves a collaboration among professional and amateur astronomers who carry out long-term observations of Cataclysmic Variables (CVs) and other variable stars. Their goal is to understand the many periodic processes and the long-term behavior of these binary star systems. CVs are pairs of stars orbiting close to each other and exchanging material, and they occasionally show explosive increases in their brightness. The core network of about 30 amateur astronomers in the CBA monitor the changes in CVs, accumulating the long baseline needed for the study of period changes. The CBA is a long-standing, successful program of citizen science in which amateur astronomers provide a meaningful and significant contribution to important scientific research results. The principal investigator has assembled the CBA to study periodic phenomena, particularly in CVs, with unequalled time sampling. They will continue to find orbital periods, superhump periods, spin periods, precession periods, flickering quasiperiods, dwarf-nova quasiperiods, and a few mysterious periods that have resisted efforts to interpret or explain. The team of professional and amateur astronomers will study the CV population and discover more candidates in each of these categories, building up a more complete account of their evolution and demographics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.