Long-Term Monitoring of the Short Period SU UMa-Type Dwarf Nova, V844 Herculis

We report on the time-resolved CCD photometry of four outbursts of a short-period SU UMa-type dwarf nova, V844 Herculis. We successfully determined the mean superhump periods to be 0.05584(64) d, and 0.055883(3) d for a 2002 May superoutburst, and a 2006 April–May superoutburst, respectively. During the 2002 October observations, we confirmed that the outburst was a normal outburst, which was the first recorded normal outburst in V844 Her. We also examined superhump period changes during the 2002 May and 2006 April–May superoutbursts, both of which showed an increasing superhump period over the course of the plateau stage. In order to examine the long-term behavior of V844 Her, we analyzed archival data over the past ten years since the discovery of this binary. Although photometry is not satisfactory for some superoutbursts, we found that V844 Her showed no precursors or rebrightenings. Based on the long-term light curve, we further confirmed that V844 Her has shown almost no normal outbursts despite the fact that the supercycle of the system is estimated to be about 300 d. In order to explain the long-term light curves of V844 Her, evaporation in the accretion disk may play a role in the avoidance of several normal outbursts, which does not contradict with the relatively a large X-ray luminosity of V844 Her.