AT 2025abao: The fourth luminous red nova in M 31

TL;DR

This paper reports detailed photometric and spectroscopic observations of AT 2025abao, the fourth luminous red nova in M 31, revealing its evolution, spectral features, and progenitor characteristics, and proposing explanations for its light-curve behavior.

Contribution

First detailed archival and spectral energy distribution analysis of an LRN progenitor, with insights into the light-curve dichotomy based on common envelope properties.

Findings

AT 2025abao reached a peak magnitude of g=15.1 mag in M 31.

Spectral evolution consistent with canonical LRNe, showing cooling and development of metal absorption lines.

Infrared SED of progenitor matches an M giant/AGB star.

Abstract

We present photometric and spectroscopic observations of the luminous red nova (LRN) AT 2025abao, the fourth discovered in M 31. The LRN, associated to the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star WNTR23bzdiq, was discovered during the fast rise following the minimum phase. It reached its peak at $g=15.1$ mag ($M_g=-9.5\pm0.1$ mag), and then it settled onto a long-duration plateau in the red bands, lasting 70 days, while it was slowly linearly declining in the blue bands. At the peak the object showed similarities with the canonical LRNe V838 Monocerotis, V1309 Scorpii, and the faint and fast-evolving AT 2019zhd, which is the third LRN in M31, though the later evolution is different. Spectroscopically, AT 2025abao evolved as a canonical LRN: the early spectra present a blue continuum with narrow Balmer lines in emission; at the peak, the spectral continuum has cooled to a yellow colour, with a photospheric temperature of 6000 K. Balmer lines had weakened, while absorption lines from metals (Fe I, Fe II, Sc II, Ba II, Ti II) had developed, and they were particularly broad from the UV Ca II H&K lines. Medium- and high-resolution spectra reveal narrow ($\sim$50 km/s) absorption and broad ($\sim$450 km/s) emission profiles in the Balmer lines, from a slower wind and a faster outflow, respectively. Finally, late-time spectra show an orange continuum ($T\sim4000-5000$ K), a return in strength of the Balmer lines and the formation of molecular absorption bands. AT 2025abao is the rare case of an LRN with detailed archival information regarding the progenitor system. For the first time, we obtained the spectral energy distribution in the infrared of the precursor of an LRN, which is consistent with that of an M~giant/AGB. We propose that the dichotomy of light-curve behaviour in LRNe (two peaks vs. plateau) can be explained by the extent and H-richness of the common envelope.