A critical analysis of three methods of distance estimation to cataclysmic variables /by Michael Joseph Gariety.

A critical analysis of three methods of estimating distances to cataclysmic variables is performed. Methods by Ak et al., Beuermann, and Knigge are used to estimate distances and are compared to recent parallax distances obtained by Thorstensen. Ak et al. and Knigge tended to under-estimate distance below the period gap, by 17.81% and 35.45%, respectively. Beuermann???s method tended to over-estimate distance below the period gap by 72.92%. Above the period gap, Ak et al. and Beuermann tended to over-estimate distances by 7.53% and 18.00%, respectively. Knigge???s method tended to under-estimate distances by 10.19%. Knigge???s semi-empirical donor sequence was plotted and given best-fit linear equations for four different regions