No Neon, but Jets in the Remarkable Recurrent Nova M31N 2008-12a? - Hubble Space Telescope Spectroscopy of the 2015 Eruption

Abstract

The 2008 discovery of an eruption of M31N 2008-12a began a journey on which the true nature of this remarkable recurrent nova continues to be revealed. M31N 2008-12a contains a white dwarf close to the Chandrasekhar limit, accreting at a high rate from its companion, and undergoes thermonuclear eruptions which are observed yearly and may even be twice as frequent. In this paper, we report on Hubble Space Telescope Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph ultraviolet spectroscopy taken within days of the predicted 2015 eruption, coupled with Keck spectroscopy of the 2013 eruption. Together, this spectroscopy permits the reddening to be constrained to E(B-V) = 0.10 +/- 0.03. The UV spectroscopy reveals evidence for highly ionized, structured, and high velocity ejecta at early times. No evidence for neon is seen in these spectra however, but it may be that little insight can be gained regarding the composition of the white dwarf (CO vs ONe).

16 pages, 5 figures, published in the Astrophysical Journal, updated version to mirror published version

References in corpus (7)

• X-ray monitoring of optical novae in M31 from July 2004 to February 2005
• Shortest Recurrence Periods of Novae
• M31N 2008-12a - the remarkable recurrent nova in M31: Pan-chromatic observations of the 2015 eruption
• Identifying and Quantifying Recurrent Novae Masquerading as Classical Novae
• M31N 2007-11d: A Slowly-Rising, Luminous Nova in M31
• Recurrent Novae in M31
• X-Ray Flashes in Recurrent Novae: M31N 2008-12a and the Implications of the Swift Non-detection

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• Extended X-ray emission from the classic nova DQ Her -- On the possible presence of a magnetized jet
• The precessing jets of classical nova YZ Reticuli
• Multi-wavelength observations of multiple eruptions of the recurrent nova M31N 2008-12a
• AT 2016dah and AT 2017fyp: the first classical novae discovered within a tidal stream
• The hydrogen Balmer lines and jump in absorption in accretion disc modeling -- an ultraviolet-optical spectral analysis of the dwarf novae UZ Serpentis and CY Lyrae