Unveiling the nature of red novae cool explosions using archive plate photometry

TL;DR

This paper investigates the physical nature of red novae explosions by analyzing archival photographic and recent CCD photometry, revealing insights into their stellar composition and explosion mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of red novae V4332 Sgr and V838 Mon, clarifying their explosion processes and stellar characteristics using combined historical and recent data.

Findings

Low temperature during outburst maximum explained by envelope expansion

Identified stellar composition and explosion components of red novae

Established the quasi-adiabatic expansion as key to outburst behavior

Abstract

Based on archive photographic photometry and recent CCD photometric data for red novae V4332 Sgr and V838 Mon, we established their stellar composition, exploded components, and the nature of explosions. Low temperature in the outburst maximum is due to quasi-adiabatic expansion of a massive stellar envelope after the central energy surge preceded the outburst.