Extended X-ray emission from the classic nova DQ Her -- On the possible presence of a magnetized jet

Abstract

We present an analysis of archival Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of the magnetically-active cataclysmic variable DQ Her and the shell around it ejected in a nova event in 1934. A careful revision of the Chandra observations confirms previous claims on the presence of extended X-ray emission around DQ Her and reveals that it actually corresponds to a bipolar jet-like structure extending $\simeq$32${}^{\prime \prime }$ along a direction from NE to SW. Therefore, this X-ray emission extends beyond the optical nova shell and is perpendicular to its major axis. The XMM-Newton observations confirm the presence of the extended X-ray emission detected by Chandra, suggesting the additional presence of a diffuse X-ray emission from a hot bubble filling the nova shell. This hot bubble was very likely produced by the explosion that created the nebular shell detected in optical images. The bipolar feature can be modelled by the combination of an optically thin plasma emission component with temperature $T\approx 2\times 10^6$ K and a power law component with a photon index of $\Gamma =1.1\pm 0.9$. Its X-ray luminosity in the 0.3 - 5 keV energy range is $L_{\mathrm{X}}=(2.1\pm 1.3)\times 10^{29}$ erg s${}^{-1}$, for an electron density $n_{\mathrm{e}}\approx 2$ cm${}^{-3}$ and a mass $m_{\mathrm{X}}\approx 3\times 10^{-6}$ M${}_{\odot }$. We suggest that the X-ray bipolar structure in DQ Her is a jet and interpret its non-thermal X-ray emission in terms of a magnetized jet.

8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table; accepted to MNRAS

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• The precessing jets of classical nova YZ Reticuli
• X-ray observations of the nova shell IPHASX J210204.7+471015