Luke Galli's CTIO REU Page

While most stars change slowly over millions of years Cataclysmic Variable stars can change greatly in a matter of minutes.  Made up of closely orbiting binary stars that exchange stellar material, Cataclysmic Variables produce accretion disks, one of the most important concepts in astrophysics. Accretion disks surround developing stars and black holes, and power distant quasars.  They are the farthest objects we can see out into space.  Cataclysmic Variables provide the clearest view of accretion disks and thus are an integral part in understanding them and the universe.