Large Magellanic Cloud Novae 13 Days After Peak Brightness
Volume 33 number 2 (2005)
- William Liller
- Center
- Raquel Yumi Shida
- Departamento
Abstract
If two novae, one fast and one slow, were to go off simultaneously in a distant galaxy, the fast one would be the brighter of the two. But this means that at some point in time after peak brightness, the two novae, fading at different rates, would become equal in brightness. From a study of recent novae in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), we find that 13 days is, on the average, that interval of time, and the average absolute magnitude then is MV = -6.32 ± 0.17. This result is markedly different from that obtained for galactic novae.