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Eclipse Mapping: Astrotomography of Accretion Discs

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Astronomy at High Angular Resolution

Part of the book series: Astrophysics and Space Science Library ((ASSL,volume 439))

Abstract

The Eclipse Mapping Method is an indirect imaging technique that transforms the shape of the eclipse light curve into a map of the surface brightness distribution of the occulted regions. Three decades of application of this technique to the investigation of the structure, the spectrum and the time evolution of accretion discs around white dwarfs in cataclysmic variables have enriched our understanding of these accretion devices with a wealth of details such as (but not limited to) moving heating/cooling waves during outbursts in dwarf novae , tidally-induced spiral shocks of emitting gas with sub-Keplerian velocities, elliptical precessing discs associated to superhumps , and measurements of the radial run of the disc viscosity through the mapping of the disc flickering sources. This chapter reviews the principles of the method, discusses its performance, limitations, useful error propagation procedures, as well as highlights a selection of applications aimed at showing the possible scientific problems that have been and may be addresses with it.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Pixels outside the region covered by the grid of criss-crossed arcs are never eclipsed, and have no corresponding ingress/egress phases (ϕ i , ϕ e ). Accordingly, there is no information about the surface brightness distribution of these unocculted regions in the shape of the eclipse.

  2. 2.

    R j and R k are the distances from pixels j and k to the centre of the disc; θ jk is the azimuthal angle between pixels j and k; s jk is the arc-length between pixels j and k.

  3. 3.

    This is usually done by fitting a spline function to the phases outside eclipse, dividing the light curve by the fitted spline, and scaling the result to the spline function value at phase zero (e.g., [9]).

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Acknowledgements

RB acknowledges financial support from CNPq/Brazil through grant no. 308 946/2011-1.

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  1. Departamento de Física, UFSC, Campus Trindade, 88040-900, Florianópolis, Brazil

    Raymundo Baptista

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  1. Raymundo Baptista
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Correspondence to Raymundo Baptista .

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  1. ESO Vitacura, Santiago de Chile, Chile

    Henri M. J. Boffin

  2. ESO, Garching, Germany

    Gaitee Hussain

  3. ESO Vitacura, Santiago de Chile, Chile

    Jean-Philippe Berger

  4. ESO Vitacura, Santiago de Chile, Chile

    Linda Schmidtobreick

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Baptista, R. (2016). Eclipse Mapping: Astrotomography of Accretion Discs. In: Boffin, H., Hussain, G., Berger, JP., Schmidtobreick, L. (eds) Astronomy at High Angular Resolution. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 439. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39739-9_9

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