The mean white dwarf (WD) mass in the Galactic bulge cataclysmic variables (CVs) was measured by applying the shock temperature-WD mass correlation of magnetic cataclysmic variables (mCVs) to the Galactic bulge X-ray emission (GBXE) spectra. However, the resulting mean WD mass is lower than that of the local CVs. This discrepancy could be explained by the dominating sources in the GBXE, which are non-mCVs instead of mCVs. In this work, we conduct a thorough investigation of the X-ray spectra of local DNe from the Suzaku archives and derive semi-empirical correlations between the shock temperature T max, the flux ratio of Fe xxvi–Lyα to Fe xxv–Heα lines, and WD mass for quiescent, nonmagnetic CVs. By applying these correlations to the GBXE, we derive the average WD mass of CVs in the Galactic bulge to be 0.81 ± 0.07M ⊙. This value is consistent with previous optical measurements of WD mass in local CVs.

A charged black hole was predicted by the Einstein-Horndeski-Maxwell theory.In order to provide its observational signatures, we investigate its weak and strong deflection gravitational lensings. We find its weak deflection lensing observables, including the positions, magnifications and differential time delay of the lensed images. We also obtain its strong deflection lensing observables, including the apparent radius of the photon sphere as well as the angular separation, brightness difference and differential time delay between the relativistic images. Taking the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Center as the lens, we evaluate these observables and compare these signatures with those of the Schwarzschild, Reissner-Nordström, tidal Reissner-Nordström and charged Galileon black holes. After a detailed analysis of the feasibility of measuring these lensing observables, we conclude that although it is possible to detect some leading effects of the weak and strong deflection lensings by the charged Horndeski and other black holes with current technology, it would be unlikely to distinguish one kind of these black holes from the others based on these detections in the near future due to lack of enough highly angular resolution in astronomical observations to tell their differences.

Many stars show activity cycles like the Sun. Kepler has gathered ∼200,000 light curves. Most of the Kepler stars only have long-cadence light curves, which limits their applicable methods. Some metrics, for example Sph, are effective for long-cadence light curves but require rotation periods. In order to improve the utilization of Kepler light curves, we introduce and use the smoothness metric. The smoothness metric is able to analyze stars without a measured rotation period and is applicable for long-cadence light curves. We test and validate our metric, resulting in the detection of the 11 years solar cycle and a 457 days cycle for our prototype star KIC 9017220. We analyze 92,084 Kepler long-cadence light curves, and as our main results, we detect 4455 magnetic activity cycle candidates, but about 20 percent are false cycles and 50 percent are lower limits of the real cycles, and we analyze their causes in detail. As an investigation into the performance of our method, we simulate disturbance factors and prove that the p-value test is invalid under certain circumstances.