On Our Multi-Wavelength Campaign of the 2011 Outburst of T Pyx†
Abstract
The well-known recurrent nova T Pyx has brightened by 7 magnitudes, starting on 2011 April 14, its first eruption since 1966. T Pyx is unique amongst recurrent novæ in being surrounded by a nebula formed of material ejected during previous eruptions. The latest eruption therefore offers the rare opportunity to observe a light echo sweeping through the existing shell, and a new one forming. The sudden exposure of the existing shell to high-energy light is expected to result in a change of the dust morphology as well as in the part destruction of molecules. We observe this process in the near- and mid-IR during several epochs using ESO's VLT instruments Sinfoni, Visir and Isaac. Unfortunately, in the data analysed so far we only have a tentative detection in Brα from the shell, so might in the end have to be content with upper limits for the emission from the various molecular bands and ionised lines.
- Publication:
-
New Horizons in Time Domain Astronomy
- Pub Date:
- April 2012
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S1743921312001226
- Bibcode:
- 2012IAUS..285..404S
- Keywords:
-
- novae;
- ISM: molecules;
- dust