Variations in the Period of Negative Superhumps in SU UMa-Type Dwarf Novae. I. Mn Dra (2012-2017)

© 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. This is a photometric study of the dwarf nova MN Dra made during 2012-2017 on nine telescopes over 152 nights. Overall, the observations covered 4 superoutbursts, 7 normal outbursts and the quiescent state. The interval between neighboring superoutbursts in 2017 was 65 days, and between neighboring normal bursts, 15 days. During the superoutbursts of 2012 and 2017, positive superhumps with a period of 0.10558(6) and 0.10500(2) days, respectively, were observed and in the quiescent state, negative superhumps with an average period of 0.095921(3) days, It is shown that the period of the negative superhumps varied cyclically between normal outbursts: sharply decreasing during an outburst and gradually increasing toward the onset of the next outburst. This feature of the variation in the period of the negative superhumps may correspond to a rapid increase in the radius of the accretion disk during the time of an outburst followed by a slow decrease, in agreement with the theory of thermal-tidal instability

High Temporal Resolution Multi-Mode Panoramic Photospectropolarimeter

Abstract: The paper describes a new stage in the development of the hardware-software complex of the MANIA experiment to search for and study the brightness variability of astrophysical objects with a temporal resolution of 10-6S s. The panoramic photospectropolarimeter uses the remotely mounted optical units—the color separation modules which allow one to carry out observations in five modes: the most transparent, multi-band, photo-polarimetric, spectroscopic, and spectro-polarimetric. Two photodetectors (PDs) based on position sensitive detectors (PSDs) with the S-20 and GaAs cathodes, the multiplication of photocurrents with microchannel plates (MCPs), and detection using collectors with the number of elements from 4 up to 16 and an EMCCD camera allow one to detect light fluxes from objects and reference stars in a field of view of up to 1 in several color bands in the low resolution spectroscopic mode, and at the same time to measure the linear polarization in three Stokes parameters. The detection system accumulates the observed data: the digitized photocount fluxes from both PDs with a temporal resolution of 1μswhile the EMCCD camera accumulates video sequences with a subsecond resolution simultaneously with the reception of ultraviolet quanta with a microsecond resolution on a single PD. We present some research results obtained in observations with the 6-m SAO RAS telescope

Massive Search for Spot- A nd Facula-Crossing Events in 1598 Exoplanetary Transit Light Curves

We developed a dedicated statistical test for a massive detection of spot- A nd facula-crossing anomalies in multiple exoplanetary transit light curves, based on the frequentist p-value thresholding. This test was used to augment our algorithmic pipeline for transit light curves analysis. It was applied to 1598 amateur and professional transit observations of 26 targets being monitored in the EXPANSION project. We detected 109 statistically significant candidate events revealing a roughly 2 : 1 asymmetry in favor of spots-crossings over faculae-crossings. Although some candidate anomalies likely appear non-physical and originate from systematic errors, such asymmetry between negative and positive events should indicate a physical difference between the frequency of star spots and faculae. Detected spot-crossing events also reveal positive correlation between their amplitude and width, possibly due to spot size correlation. However, the frequency of all detectable crossing events appears just about a few per cent, so they cannot explain excessive transit timing noise observed for several targets

Full orbital solution for the binary system in the northern Galactic disc microlensing event Gaia16aye

© ESO 2020. Gaia16aye was a binary microlensing event discovered in the direction towards the northern Galactic disc and was one of the first microlensing events detected and alerted to by the Gaia space mission. Its light curve exhibited five distinct brightening episodes, reaching up to I? =? 12 mag, and it was covered in great detail with almost 25 000 data points gathered by a network of telescopes. We present the photometric and spectroscopic follow-up covering 500 days of the event evolution. We employed a full Keplerian binary orbit microlensing model combined with the motion of Earth and Gaia around the Sun to reproduce the complex light curve. The photometric data allowed us to solve the microlensing event entirely and to derive the complete and unique set of orbital parameters of the binary lensing system. We also report on the detection of the first-ever microlensing space-parallax between the Earth and Gaia located at L2. The properties of the binary system were derived from microlensing parameters, and we found that the system is composed of two main-sequence stars with masses 0.57 ± 0.05 M? and 0.36 ± 0.03 M? at 780 pc, with an orbital period of 2.88 years and an eccentricity of 0.30. We also predict the astrometric microlensing signal for this binary lens as it will be seen by Gaia as well as the radial velocity curve for the binary system. Events such as Gaia16aye indicate the potential for the microlensing method of probing the mass function of dark objects, including black holes, in directions other than that of the Galactic bulge. This case also emphasises the importance of long-term time-domain coordinated observations that can be made with a network of heterogeneous telescopes

Full orbital solution for the binary system in the northern Galactic disc microlensing event Gaia16aye

Gaia16aye was a binary microlensing event discovered in the direction towards the northern Galactic disc and was one of the first microlensing events detected and alerted to by the Gaia space mission. Its light curve exhibited five distinct brightening episodes, reaching up to I = 12 mag, and it was covered in great detail with almost 25 000 data points gathered by a network of telescopes. We present the photometric and spectroscopic follow-up covering 500 days of the event evolution. We employed a full Keplerian binary orbit microlensing model combined with the motion of Earth and Gaia around the Sun to reproduce the complex light curve. The photometric data allowed us to solve the microlensing event entirely and to derive the complete and unique set of orbital parameters of the binary lensing system. We also report on the detection of the first-ever microlensing space-parallax between the Earth and Gaia located at L2. The properties of the binary system were derived from microlensing parameters, and we found that the system is composed of two main-sequence stars with masses 0.57 ± 0.05 M⊙ and 0.36 ± 0.03 M⊙ at 780 pc, with an orbital period of 2.88 years and an eccentricity of 0.30. We also predict the astrometric microlensing signal for this binary lens as it will be seen by Gaia as well as the radial velocity curve for the binary system. Events such as Gaia16aye indicate the potential for the microlensing method of probing the mass function of dark objects, including black holes, in directions other than that of the Galactic bulge. This case also emphasises the importance of long-term time-domain coordinated observations that can be made with a network of heterogeneous telescopes