The Long Overdue Recurrent Nova T Pyxidis: Soon to be Type Ia Supernova?

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The recurrent nova T Pyxidis has had 5 recorded thermonuclear explosions, more than any other recurrent nova, with an average time between nova outbursts of 19 years. However, it has been 44 years since its last nova outburst in 1966, making it long overdue for the next nova (supernova?). Our preliminary synthetic spectral analysis with the use of realistic, optically thick accretion disk models with vertical structure demonstrates that the far ultraviolet continuum energy distribution of T Pyx is completely dominated by a steady state optically thick accretion disk for E(B-V) = 0.25, i = 18 degrees, a near-Chandrasekhar mass white dwarf and a canonical accretion rate 10-8 Msun/yr but that the distance to T Pyx with these best-fitting parameters is only 1 kpc, not the widely assumed distance of 3.5 kpc. Assuming a distance of 3.5 kpc leads to extremely poor model fits and a lower than anticipated accretion rate. Moreover, the envelope mass for white dwarfs as massive as 1.37 Msun is possibly as low as 10-7 Msun, which is also the amount of mass that is needed to achieve thermonuclear ignition. Unless T Pyx is extremely young and was born as a CV below the period gap with a near-Chandrasekhar mass white dwarf, then it is close to the critical mass for a Type Ia supernova event, the kind of supernova used as a standard candle to demonstrate that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating. Our preliminary work supports the scenario that the white dwarf is continuing to increase its mass and is perilously close to a Type Ia supernova explosion. We discuss the potentially far reaching implications of our results.
We gratefully acknowledge support for this work by NSF grant AST0807892 and NASA ADP grant ADP grant NNX08AJ39G, both to Villanova University.

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