A Hubble Space Telescope survey for novae in M87. III. Are novae good standard candles 15 days after maximum brightness?
| Autor: | David R. Zurek, Attay Kovetz, Joanna Mikolajewska, Ariel Goerl, D. L. Welch, Trisha F. Doyle, Juan P. Madrid, James T. Garland, Tod R. Lauer, Michael M. Shara, James D. Neill, O. Yaron, Edward A. Baltz, Ashley Pagnotta, Tamara Machac, Dina Prialnik |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
Physics Absolute magnitude Brightness 010308 nuclear & particles physics Cosmic distance ladder FOS: Physical sciences Astronomy Astronomy and Astrophysics Astrophysics Light curve 01 natural sciences Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Space and Planetary Science Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) Hubble space telescope 0103 physical sciences Elliptical galaxy Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 010303 astronomy & astrophysics Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) |
| Zdroj: | NASA Astrophysics Data System |
| Popis: | Ten weeks of daily imaging of the giant elliptical galaxy M87 with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has yielded 41 nova light curves of unprecedented quality for extragalactic cataclysmic variables. We have recently used these light curves to demonstrate that the observational scatter in the so-called Maximum-Magnitude Rate of Decline (MMRD) relation for classical novae is so large as to render the nova-MMRD useless as a standard candle. Here we demonstrate that a modified Buscombe - de Vaucouleurs hypothesis, namely that novae with decline times t2 > 10 days converge to nearly the same absolute magnitude about two weeks after maximum light in a giant elliptical galaxy, is supported by our M87 nova data. For 13 novae with daily-sampled light curves, well determined times of maximum light in both the F606W and F814W filters, and decline times $t2 > 10 days we find that M87 novae display M(606W,15) = -6.37 +/- 0.46 and M(814W,15) = -6.11 +/- 0.43. If very fast novae with decline times t2 < 10 days are excluded, the distances to novae in elliptical galaxies with stellar binary populations similar to those of M87 should be determinable with 1 sigma accuracies of +/-20% with the above calibrations. 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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