Recent progress in understanding the eruptions of classical novae

Technical Report · Sat Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1988

OSTI ID:6966342

Shara, M M

Dramatic progress has occurred in the last two decades in understanding the physical processes and events leading up to, and transpiring during the eruption of a classical nova. The mechanism whereby a white dwarf accreting hydrogen-rich matter from a low-mass main-sequence companion produces a nova eruption has been understood since 1970. The mass-transferring binary stellar configuration leads inexorably to thermonuclear runaways detected at distances of megaparsecs. Summarized here are the efforts of many researchers in understanding the physical processes which generate nova eruptions; the effects upon nova eruptions of different binary-system parameters (e.g., chemical composition or mass of the white dwarf, different mass accretion rates); the possible metamorphosis from dwarf to classical novae and back again; and observational diagnostics of novae, including x ray and gamma ray emission, and the characteristics and distributions of novae in globular clusters and in extragalactic systems. While the thermonuclear-runaway model remains the successful cornerstone of nova simulation, it is now clear that a wide variety of physical processes, and three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations, will be needed to explain the rich spectrum of behavior observed in erupting novae.

• Research Organization: Space Telescope Science Inst., Baltimore, MD (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6966342
• Report Number(s): N-90-15870; NASA-CR--186280; NAS--1.26:186280; PREPRINT-SERIES--314
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640102* -- Astrophysics & Cosmology-- Stars & Quasi-Stellar
Radio & X-Ray Sources
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
BINARY STARS
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
DATA
ERUPTION
ERUPTIVE VARIABLE STARS
FLUID MECHANICS
HYDRODYNAMICS
INFORMATION
MAIN SEQUENCE STARS
MASS TRANSFER
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MATTER
MECHANICS
NOVAE
NUCLEAR REACTIONS
NUCLEOSYNTHESIS
NUMERICAL DATA
SIMULATION
STAR CLUSTERS
STARS
SYNTHESIS
THEORETICAL DATA
THERMONUCLEAR REACTIONS
VARIABLE STARS