Second Timescale Photometry of the Very Fast Nova V1674 Her with Palomar Gattini-IR

TL;DR

This paper presents the first high-temporal-resolution infrared photometry of the fast nova V1674 Her, revealing no significant periodic variability within the first week after discovery, and providing new insights into its early behavior.

Contribution

It provides the first infrared, high-temporal-resolution data of V1674 Her, improving understanding of its early variability and setting upper limits on periodic signals.

Findings

No periodic variability detected down to 0.093 mag

First infrared data with ~0.84 s resolution for this nova

Periodic variability was at least 1.65 times lower than previously reported

Abstract

We report second-timescale infrared photometry of the nova V1674 Her using Palomar Gattini-IR. These observations constitute the first infrared and highest temporal resolution data (resolution of ~ 0.84 s) of the nova reported to date. PGIR observed in this fast readout mode for more than an hour on three nights between 3 and 6 days after discovery. We searched for periodic variability using a Lomb-Scargle periodogram and did not detect anything down to a three sigma upper limit of 0.093 mag. This suggests that the periodic variability detected in the nova by Patterson et al. 2021 was lower by at least a factor of about 1.65 in the first week of the eruption.