The 2010 Eruption of the Recurrent Nova U Scorpii: The Multi-Wavelength Light Curve

Creators: Pagnotta, Ashley; Schaefer, Bradley E.; Clem, James L.; Landolt, Arlo U.; Handler, Gerald; Page, Kim L.; Osborne, Julian P.; Schlegel, Eric M.; Hoffman, Douglas I.; Kiyota, Seiichiro; Maehara, Hiroyuki

Abstract

The recurrent nova U Scorpii most recently erupted in 2010. Our collaboration observed the eruption in bands ranging from the Swift XRT and UVOT w2 (193 nm) to K-band (2200 nm), with a few serendipitous observations stretching down to WISE W2 (4600 nm). Considering the time and wavelength coverage, this is the most comprehensively observed nova eruption to date. We present here the resulting multi-wavelength light curve covering the two months of the eruption as well as a few months into quiescence. For the first time, a U Sco eruption has been followed all the way back to quiescence, leading to the discovery of new features in the light curve, including a second, as-yet-unexplained, plateau in the optical and near-infrared. Using this light curve we show that U Sco nearly fits the broken power law decline predicted by Hachisu & Kato, with decline indices of −1.71 ± 0.02 and −3.36 ± 0.14. With our unprecedented multi-wavelength coverage, we construct daily spectral energy distributions and then calculate the total radiated energy of the eruption, E_(rad) = 6.99_(-0.57)^(+0.83) x 10^(44) erg. From that, we estimate the total amount of mass ejected by the eruption to be m_(ej) = 2.10_(-0.17^(+0.24) x 10^(-6) M_☉. We compare this to the total amount of mass accreted by U Sco before the eruption, to determine whether the white dwarf undergoes a net mass loss or gain, but find that the values for the amount of mass accreted are not precise enough to make a useful comparison.

Additional Information

© 2015 American Astronomical Society. Received 2015 June 5; accepted 2015 August 4; published 2015 September 17. This research was supported by NSF Grant AST-0708079, the Louisiana Space Consortium and NASA through Grant NNX10AI40H, as well as the Kathryn W. Davis Postdoctoral Scholar program, which is supported in part by the New York State Education Department and by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers DRL-1119444 and DUE-1340006. A.U.L. acknowledges support from NSF Grant AST-0803158. K.L.P. and J.P.O. acknowledge support from the UK Space Agency. G.H. acknowledges partial financial support from the Austrian FWF grant P20526-N16 and encouragement from Patrick Woudt. We heartily thank all members of the USCO2010 collaboration, whose observations were critical to our successful campaign. We acknowledge with many thanks the variable star observations from the AAVSO International Database contributed by observers worldwide and used in this research, as well as the observers of the Center for Backyard Astrophysics. This publication makes use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Attached Files

Published - Pagnotta_2015p32.pdf

Submitted - 1509.05431v1.pdf

Files

1509.05431v1.pdf

Files (3.3 MB)

Name	Size	Download all
1509.05431v1.pdf md5:949cf5fafd24e926773b2c78286beb75	1.3 MB	Preview Download
Pagnotta_2015p32.pdf md5:995a3557f6ecf2e11d2cc19b5745ee9f	2.0 MB	Preview Download

Additional details

	All versions	This version
Views	0	0
Downloads	0	0
Data volume	0 Bytes	0 Bytes