GK Per: the “first star" of the 20th century - a historical review of this cataclysmic variable


Tuesday, 24 October 2023 7 a.m. — 8 a.m. MST

AURA Lecture Hall

NOIRLab South Colloquia
Jesus Corral Santana (ESO Chile)

On February 1901, an amateur astronomer detected a new 3-mag star in the Perseus constellation. Now we know it was a nova explosion of a cataclysmic variable, a type of interacting binary system with an accreting white dwarf being fed by a companion star. This source has been studied for more than a century but the determination of its dynamical parameters has been a challenge since. It is already known that the WD has a strong magnetic field (10^5 G) that truncates the accretion disc, making it even more challenging. I will end the talk showing you the latest results we derived with multi-site observations, obtaining the most accurate dynamical parameters to date.