The first three years of the outburst and light-echo evolution of V838 Mon and the nature of its progenitor
arXiv:astro-ph/0501546 · doi:10.1063/1.2130251
Abstract
V838 Mon has undergone one of the most mysterious stellar outbursts on record, with (a) a large amplitude (Delta B ~ 10 mag) and multi-maxima photometric pattern, (b) a cool spectral type at maximum becoming cooler and cooler with time during the descent, until it reached the never-seen-before realm of L-type supergiants, never passing through optically thin or nebular stages, (c) the development of a spectacular, monotonically expanding light-echo in the circumstellar material, and (d) the identification of a massive and young B3V companion, unaffected by the outburst. In this talk we review the photometric and spectroscopic evolution during the first three full years of outburst, the light-echo development and infer the nature of the progenitor, which was brighter and hotter in quiescence than the B3V companion and with an inferred ZAMS mass of about 65 Msun.
to appear in the Proceedings of the Colloquium "Interacting Binaries: Accretion, Evolution and Outcome", held in Cefalu' (Sicily) July 4-10, 2004, L.A. Antonelli et al. eds., American Institute of Physics Conf. Proc. series, in press. 6 pages, 4 figures