Asset Details
Do you wish to reserve the book?
A nova outburst powered by shocks
Hey, we have placed the reservation for you!
By the way, why not check out events that you can attend while you pick your title.
Oops! Something went wrong.
Looks like we were not able to place the reservation. Kindly try again later.
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
A nova outburst powered by shocks
Do you wish to request the book?
A nova outburst powered by shocks
Please be aware that the book you have requested cannot be checked out. If you would like to checkout this book, you can reserve another copy
We have requested the book for you!
Your request is successful and it will be processed during the Library working hours. Please check the status of your request in My Requests.
Oops! Something went wrong.
Looks like we were not able to place your request. Kindly try again later.
Journal Article
A nova outburst powered by shocks
2017
Overview
Classical novae are runaway thermonuclear burning events on the surfaces of accreting white dwarfs in close binary star systems, sometimes appearing as new naked-eye sources in the night sky
1
. The standard model of novae predicts that their optical luminosity derives from energy released near the hot white dwarf, which is reprocessed through the ejected material
2
–
5
. Recent studies using the Fermi Large Area Telescope have shown that many classical novae are accompanied by gigaelectronvolt γ-ray emission
6
,
7
. This emission likely originates from strong shocks, providing new insights into the properties of nova outflows and allowing them to be used as laboratories for the study of the unknown efficiency of particle acceleration in shocks. Here, we report γ-ray and optical observations of the Milky Way nova ASASSN-16ma, which is among the brightest novae ever detected in γ-rays. The γ-ray and optical light curves show a remarkable correlation, implying that the majority of the optical light comes from reprocessed emission from shocks rather than the white dwarf
8
. The ratio of γ-ray to optical flux in ASASSN-16ma directly constrains the acceleration efficiency of non-thermal particles to be around 0.005, favouring hadronic models for the γ-ray emission
9
. The need to accelerate particles up to energies exceeding 100 gigaelectronvolts provides compelling evidence for magnetic field amplification in the shocks.
A tight correlation between gamma rays and optical emission in nova ASASSN-16ma indicates that the optical light comes from reprocessed emission from shocks in the ejecta, rather than an energy release near the hot white dwarf, as in the standard model.
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
Subject
