2001/01/29 by C. A. Watson, C.A. Watson, V. S. Dhillon +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Bootstrapping (finance) #Monte Carlo method #Statistical analysis #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Systematic error #Tomographic reconstruction #Tomography #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2001.04408.x
published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 326 (2001) 67 · 11 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS
arxiv created 2001/01/29 · openalex publication_date 2001/09/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Roche tomography is a technique used for imaging the Roche-lobe-filling secondary stars in cataclysmic variables (CVs). In order to interpret Roche tomograms correctly, one must determine whether features in the reconstruction are real, or the result of statistical or systematic errors. We explore the effects of systematic errors using reconstructions of simulated data sets, and show that systematic errors result in characteristic distortions of the final reconstructions that can be identified and corrected. In addition, we present a new method of estimating statistical errors on tomographic reconstructions using a Monte Carlo bootstrapping algorithm, and show this method to be much more reliable than Monte Carlo methods which ‘jiggle’ the data points in accordance with the size of their error bars.