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Light curves and absolute magnitudes of four recent fast LMC novae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

J.B. Hearnshaw ,
C.M. Livingston ,
A.C. Gilmore  and
P.M. Kilmartin
J.B. Hearnshaw
Affiliation:
Dept of Physics and Astronomy andMt John University Observatory, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand
C.M. Livingston
Affiliation:
Dept of Physics and Astronomy andMt John University Observatory, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand
A.C. Gilmore
Affiliation:
Dept of Physics and Astronomy andMt John University Observatory, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand
P.M. Kilmartin
Affiliation:
Dept of Physics and Astronomy andMt John University Observatory, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand

Abstract

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The light curves of four recent fast LMC novae (Nova LMC 1988a, 1992, 1995, 2000) have been analysed to obtain the parameter t2 the time for a two magnitude decline below maximum light. Using the calibration of Della Valle & Livio (1995), values of MV at maximum are obtained. The weighted mean distance modulus to the LMC based on these novae is 18.89 ± 0.16. This differs significantly from the distance modulus adopted by Della Valle & Livio of 18.50, but only differs at the 1σ-level from Feast’s (1999) value of 18.70 ± 0.10. The evidence based on these novae suggests that either: (i) DMLMC = 18.50 is too close for the LMC; or (ii) some novae in the LMC, including these four, are significantly underluminous at maximum light compared with those in M31, by about 0.4 mag. This could be a metallicity effect, given that more metal-rich M31 novae were predominantly used by Della Valle & Livio to obtain their calibration.

Type
Part 2. What variable stars tell us about the Local Group, including the distance scale
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 193: Variable Stars in the Local Group , 2004 , pp. 103 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2004

References

Della Valle, M., Livio, M. 1995, APJ, 452, 704 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feast, M.W. 1999, in New Views of the Magellanic Clouds, eds. Chu, Y.-H., Suntzeff, N., Hesser, J., & Bohlender, D., IAU Symp. 190, 542 Google Scholar
Payne-Gaposchkin, C. 1957 The Galactic Novae, (North Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam)Google Scholar