The continued optical to mid-infrared evolution of V838 Monocerotis
- Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, 830 Dennison, 500 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1042 (United States)
- Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Oklahoma, 440 W. Brooks Street, Norman, OK 73019 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States)
- NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 671, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Laboratory for Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics, Code 667, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
- Ritter Observatory, MS #113, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606-3390 (United States)
- AURA, 1212 New York Avenue NW, Suite 450, Washington, DC 20005 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States)
- Department of Physics, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, 300 Pulteney Street, Geneva, NY 14456 (United States)
- The Observatories, Carnegie Institution for Science, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States)
- The Aerospace Corporation, M2-266, P.O. Box 92957, Los Angeles, CA 90009-29257 (United States)
The eruptive variable V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) gained notoriety in 2002 when it brightened nine magnitudes in a series of three outbursts and then rapidly evolved into an extremely cool supergiant. We present optical, near-infrared (near-IR), and mid-IR spectroscopic and photometric observations of V838 Mon obtained between 2008 and 2012 at the Apache Point Observatory 3.5 m, NASA IRTF 3 m, and Gemini South 8 m telescopes. We contemporaneously analyze the optical and IR spectroscopic properties of V838 Mon to arrive at a revised spectral type L3 supergiant and effective temperature T{sub eff}∼2000–2200 K. Because there are no existing optical observational data for L supergiants, we speculate that V838 Mon may represent the prototype for L supergiants in this wavelength regime. We find a low level of Hα emission present in the system, consistent with interaction between V838 Mon and its B3V binary; however, we cannot rule out a stellar collision as the genesis event, which could result in the observed Hα activity. Based upon a two-component blackbody fit to all wavelengths of our data, we conclude that, as of 2009, a shell of ejecta surrounded V838 Mon at a radius of R=263±10 AU with a temperature of T=285±2 K. This result is consistent with IR interferometric observations from the same era and predictions from the Lynch et al. model of the expanding system, which provides a simple framework for understanding this complicated system.
- OSTI ID:
- 22342166
- Journal Information:
- Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online), Vol. 149, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1538-3881
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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