A new class of transients

Details A new class of transients A new class of transients

Jun 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006sptz.prop..276k&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #276

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Scientific paper

The two most common astronomical explosions are novae and supernovae. It has long been noted that there is a curious dearth of explosive events with brightness in between these two classes. We have uncovered and followed up such an event located in the outskirts of the nearby lenticular galaxy Messier 85. This object, hereafter M85 OT 2006-1, peaked at an absolute R-band magnitude of -13 and released ~10E47 erg over the first two month. The optical light curve showed steady emission for about 100 days together with a shift of the peak frequency from optical to near-IR. This resembles two other mysterious transients, the enigmatic M31-RV in M31 as well as V838 Mon in the Milky Way. However, M85 OT 2006-1 is even more challenging to understand given that it is more luminous by an order of magnitude. One possibility for their origin is the merger of a star with a companion, either another star or brown dwarf. Based on the evolution of V838 Mon, the spectrum of M85 OT 2006-1 can be expected to shift further to the thermal infrared. Here we propose to use IRAC for deep imaging from 3.6 to 8 microns in order to monitor the IR evolution of the source and diagnose the mass and geometry of the ejecta.

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