Review Of The 2010 Eruption Of Recurrent Nova U Scorpii

TL;DR

This paper documents the comprehensive observational coverage of the 2010 eruption of recurrent nova U Scorpii, revealing new phenomena such as rapid optical flares, high ejecta velocities, and transient dips in brightness.

Contribution

It provides the most detailed multi-wavelength observational dataset of a nova eruption, leading to the discovery of three new phenomena and insights into nova behavior.

Findings

Discovery of early fast optical flares with no known explanation

Detection of ejecta velocities at 10,000 km/s, similar to supernovae

Observation of deep transient dips in optical and X-ray brightness

Abstract

On 28 January 2010, the recurrent nova U Scorpii had its long predicted eruption; prior preparation allowed for this to become the all-time best observed nova event. The coverage included daily and hourly spectra in the X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, and infrared, plus daily and hourly photometry in the X-ray, ultraviolet, U, B, V, y, R, I, J, H, K, and middle infrared, including roughly 35,000 V-band magnitudes (an average of better than once every three minutes) throughout the entire 67 days of the eruption. This unprecedented coverage has allowed for the discovery of three new phenomena; the early fast optical flares (with no known explanation), ejecta velocities at 10,000 km/s (velocities that previously had only been seen in supernovae), and deep transient dips in optical and X-ray brightness lasting for hours (for which I point to X-ray dippers as having the same cause).