Optical light curves of FUor and FUor-like objects

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the long-term photometric behavior of FUor objects using recent CCD data and historical plate archives to understand their outburst characteristics and variability.

Contribution

It compiles and compares long-term light curves of FUors, revealing diverse photometric behaviors and providing insights into their outburst evolution.

Findings

Different FUors show unique light curve shapes.

Variability in brightness increase and decrease rates.

Historical data is crucial for understanding outburst timing.

Abstract

Using recent data from photometric monitoring and data from the photographic plate archives we aim to study, the long-term photometric behavior of FUors. The construction of the historical light curves of FUors could be very important for determining the beginning of the outburst, the time to reach the maximum light, the rate of increase and decrease in brightness, the pre-outburst variability of the star. Our CCD photometric observations were performed with the telescopes of the Rozhen (Bulgaria) and Skinakas (Crete, Greece) observatories. Most suitable for long-term photometric study are the plate archives of the big Schmidt telescopes, as the telescopes at Kiso Observatory, Asiago Observatory, Palomar Observatory and others. In comparing our results with light curves of the well-studied FUors, we conclude that every new FUor object shows different photometric behavior. Each known FUor has a different rate of increase and decrease in brightness and a different light curve shape.