Artist's impression of a cataclysmic
variable © 1996 by Mark A. Garlick
This is the homepage of the
Galactic Astronomy group at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory. We
invite you to browse through our web pages for an
overview of the work we do here.
OUR MAJOR TOPICS OF INTEREST ARE:
MAGNETIC CATACLYSMIC VARIABLES
X-RAY BINARIES
STELLAR WINDS
Current Areas of Research:
Indirect imaging of the accretion stream in polars:
The brightness
distribution of polar
accretion streams can be used to examine the interactions between the stream
plasma and the magnetosphere of the white dwarf.
Accretion Regions in AM Her Systems:
'Stokes imaging' of the accretion region in
Magnetic Cataclysmic Variables
Polarimetry of Magnetic CVs:
How we use their polarised emission to get
important system parameters.
Spectropolarimetry as a probe of
stellar winds:
Linear spectropolarimetry is used to investigate the
geometries of the stellar outflows from both early- and late-type stars.
X-ray Spectra from Magnetic CVs:
How we model the X-ray spectra from the accretion
region in magnetic CVs.
Winds in CVs:
Using ultraviolet spectroscopy to study the mass
outflow from accretion disks.
A list of our Galactic Publications since 1994 is available.
More general information about Cataclysmic Variables may be found in the following page:
MSSL home pages:
Maintained by Kate Harrop-Allin
(mkha@mssl.ucl.ac.uk).
Last modified 20 March 1998