Chandra Observations of Classical Novae in Outburst: The Demise of the Constant Bolometric Luminosity Paradigm

Details Chandra Observations of Classical Novae in Outburst: The Demise of the Constant Bolometric Luminosity Paradigm Chandra Observations of Classical Novae in Outburst: The Demise of the Constant Bolometric Luminosity Paradigm

Sep 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009cfdd.confe.199s&link_type=abstract

Chandra's First Decade of Discovery, Proceedings of the conference held 22-25 September, 2009 in Boston, MA. Edited by Scott Wo

Computer Science

Compact Objects

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One of the first predictions of the thermonuclear runaway theory of the nova outburst was that at later stages in the outburst there would be a phase of constant bolometric luminosity. The cause was predicted to be emission from the accreted layers that were not ejected in the explosive phase and were steadily burning hydrogen to helium in the surface layers of the white dwarf. It was predicted to be hot and last for years. This is now called the Super Soft Source (SSS) phase because the spectrum and luminosity of a nova in outburst resembles the SSS discovered by ROSAT in the LMC. The existence of this phase for novae in outburst was confirmed by both ultraviolet and early X-ray observations with EXOSAT and ROSAT. However, the much larger amount of data obtained by Chandra shows that the typical amount of time spent in this phase by a nova is much shorter than predicted by the original calculations and depends on the mass of the white dwarf and its composition. More exciting, the Chandra X-ray observations show that this phase is neither constant on short or long time scales. Every nova, and at least one canonical SSS (Cal 83), have shown large fluctuations in count rate when observed in their SSS phase. We will show the X-ray light curves obtained for V382 Vul and V1494 Aql shortly after the launch of Chandra, V4743 Sgr which had oscillations of more than 50%, RS Oph with both a large amplitude oscillation and a 35-second oscillation, and more recent novae.

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