€Important for investigations on how material interacts with a magnetic field:
–threading region in Polars,
–inner region of disk in Intermediate Polars,
–Dwarf Nova oscillations in non-magnetic CVs
€In general, the balance of:
–visibility of underlying system (to provide the context)
&
–the emission (X-ray, optical) has been fundamental to
making enormous progress in
understanding a wide range of astrophysics
€It is a field which incorporates fluid dynamics, MHD, a full range of emission processes, stellar
evolution, gravitational radiation etc.
€A large number of important observational techniques have been developed in the context of
CVs and then used elsewhere:
–Doppler tomography,
–eclipse mapping of disks and streams,
–Stokes imaging,
–timing analyses
€Many well-known astronomers/astrophysicists have worked in this field, developing their
theoretical understanding and observational & interpretational skills
before carrying these into other fields