Discovery of multiple shells around V838 Monocerotis

Details Discovery of multiple shells around V838 Monocerotis Discovery of multiple shells around V838 Monocerotis

2004-07-07

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0407141v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

5 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

Scientific paper

10.1051/0004-6361:20041388

We report the discovery of multiple shells around the eruptive variable star V838 Mon. Two dust shells are seen in IRAS and MSX images, which themselves are situated in a shell of CO. This securely establishes V838 Mon as an evolved object. We revisit the light echo, which arises from scattering off the innermost resolved dust shell, to infer a distance to V838 Mon of >~5.5 kpc. The dynamical timescales of the ejected shells, location in the Milky Way and inferred luminosity are consistent with V838 Mon being a low-mass AGB star experiencing thermal pulses of which the 2002 eruption might have sent the star into the post-AGB phase. This scenario, however, is inconsistent with the presence of a (young and massive) B3 V companion.

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