Variability in the Near-IR Spectrum of Eta Carinae

Details Variability in the Near-IR Spectrum of Eta Carinae Variability in the Near-IR Spectrum of Eta Carinae

Feb 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001noao.prop..188s&link_type=abstract

NOAO Proposal ID #2001A-0188

Physics

Scientific paper

Last year we discovered that η Carinae, perhaps the most massive and luminous star in the Galaxy, had doubled its optical/UV flux in our HST spectra and images. The most recent HST data show that this outburst has continued, and η Car is now the brightest it has been since its Great Eruption in the 19th century. This brightening is critical to our understanding of instabilities in luminous stars, since η Car was already thought to be close to the Eddington luminosity before the outburst began. The cause of this brightening is not yet understood. Furthermore, η Car shows spectroscopic and photometric variability on a 5.5 year cycle discovered in near-IR observations, the cause of which is also not understood, but has been attributed to a binary system. Near-IR wavelengths contain a wealth of emission lines of the same species that vary dramatically in our most recent HST/STIS spectra. A few of these near-IR emission lines, especially from He I, are vital to our understanding of η Car's spectroscopic variability and might help solve the debate about binarity. The near-IR spectrum needs to be monitored from the ground, to support the optical and UV spectra we will obtain with HST/STIS. Finally, we propose further study of a few interesting discoveries in our previous near-IR spectra, namely, emission from shocked H_2 and [Fe II], which were not seen in any previous near-IR spectra.

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