Properties, evolution and morpho-kinematical modelling of the very fast nova V2672 Oph (Nova Oph 2009), a clone of U Sco

V2672 Oph reached maximum brightness V=11.35 on 2009 August 16.5. With observed t2(V)=2.3 and t3(V)=4.2 days decline times, it is one of the fastest known novae, being rivalled only by V1500 Cyg (1975) and V838 Her (1991) among classical novae, and U Sco among the recurrent ones. The line of sight to the nova passes within a few degrees of the Galactic centre. The reddening of V2672 Oph is E(B-V)=1.6 +/-0.1, and its distance ~19 kpc places it on the other side of the Galactic centre at a galacto-centric distance larger than the solar one. The lack of an infrared counterpart for the progenitor excludes the donor star from being a cool giant like in RS Oph or T CrB. With close similarity to U Sco, V2672 Oph displayed a photometric plateau phase, a He/N spectrum classification, extreme expansion velocities and triple peaked emission line profiles during advanced decline. The full width at zero intensity of Halpha was 12,000 km/s at maximum, and declined linearly in time with a slope very similar to that observed in U Sco. We infer a WD mass close to the Chandrasekhar limit and a possible final fate as a SNIa. Morpho-kinematical modelling of the evolution of the Halpha profile suggests that the overall structure of the ejecta is that of a prolate system with polar blobs and an equatorial ring. The density in the prolate system appeared to decline faster than that in the other components. V2672 Oph is seen pole-on, with an inclination of 0+/-6 deg and an expansion velocity of the polar blobs of 4800 +900/-800 km/s. On the basis of its remarkable similarity to U Sco, we suspect this nova may be a recurrent. Given the southern declination, the faintness at maximum, the extremely rapid decline and its close proximity to the Ecliptic, it is quite possible that previous outbursts of V2672 Oph have been missed.Comment: in press in MNRA

Observations of GRB 060526 Optical Afterglow with Russian-Turkish 1.5-m Telescope

We present the results of the photometric multicolor observations of GRB 060526 optical afterglow obtained with Russian-Turkish 1.5-m Telescope (RTT150, Mt. Bakirlitepe, Turkey). The detailed measurements of afterglow light curve, starting from about 5 hours after the GRB and during 5 consecutive nights were done. In addition, upper limits on the fast variability of the afterglow during the first night of observations were obtained and the history of afterglow color variations was measured in detail. In the time interval from 6 to 16 hours after the burst, there is a gradual flux decay, which can be described approximately as a power law with an index of -1.14+-0.02. After that the variability on the time scale \delta t < t is observed and the afterglow started to decay faster. The color of the afterglow, V-R=~0.5, is approximately the same during all our observations. The variability is detected on time scales up to \delta t/t =~ 0.0055 at \Delta F_\nu/F_\nu =~ 0.3, which violates some constraints on the variability of the observed emission from ultrarelativistic jet obtained by Ioka et al. (2005). We suggest to explain this variability by the fact that the motion of the emitting shell is no longer ultrarelativistic at this time.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, Astronomy Letters, 2007, 33, 797, The on-line data tables and the original text in Russian can be found at http://hea.iki.rssi.ru/grb/060526/indexeng.htm

Echo-Mapping of Swift J1753.5-0127

We present two epochs of coordinated X-ray-optical timing observations of the black hole candidate Swift J1753.5-0127 during its 2005 outburst. The first epoch in July occurred at outburst peak. Two consecutive nights of observations using the McDonald Observatory Argos camera with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer show a consistent correlation with an immediate response and an extended tail lasting ~5s. The properties of the variability and the correlation are consistent with thermal reprocessing in an accretion disk. The shortness of the lag suggests a short orbital period consistent with that recently claimed. The second epoch in August used the VLT FORS2 HIT mode again in conjunction with RXTE. Again a repeatable correlation is seen between two independent subsets of the data. In this case, though, the cross-correlation function has an unusual structure comprising a dip followed by a double-peak. We suggest that this may be equivalent to the dip plus single peak structure seen by Kanbach et al. (2001) in XTE J1118+480 and attributed there to synchrotron emission; a similar structure was seen during later activity of Swift J1753.5-0127 by Durant et al. (2008).Comment: 7 pages, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

CCD-based observations of PG 0856+121 and a theoretical analysis of its oscillation modes

BVRI CCD-based and near-IR (J) imaging, together with unfiltered photometry of the hot subdwarf B star PG 0856+121 are reported. Two close, faint, red, point-like sources are resolved. They account for the previously reported IR excess observed in this hot subdwarf. In addition, the new unfiltered differential photometry of PG 0856+121 confirms its previously reported pulsational nature. A comparison with the oscillation modes of stellar models suggests the possible presence of g modes.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. Seven pages, four figures include

A photometric and astrometric investigation of the brown dwarfs in Blanco 1

We present the results of a photometric and astrometric study of the low mass stellar and substellar population of the young open cluster Blanco 1. We have exploited J band data, obtained recently with the Wide Field Camera (WFCAM) on the United Kingdom InfraRed Telescope (UKIRT), and 10 year old I and z band optical imaging from CFH12k and Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), to identify 44 candidate low mass stellar and substellar members, in an area of 2 sq. degrees, on the basis of their colours and proper motions. This sample includes five sources which are newly discovered. We also confirm the lowest mass candidate member of Blanco 1 unearthed so far (29MJup). We determine the cluster mass function to have a slope of alpha=+0.93, assuming it to have a power law form. This is high, but nearly consistent with previous studies of the cluster (to within the errors), and also that of its much better studied northern hemisphere analogue, the Pleiades.Comment: 8 Pages, 5 Figures, 2 Tables and 1 Appendix. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Analysis of the Reaction Rate Coefficients for Slow Bimolecular Chemical Reactions

Simple bimolecular reactions $A_1+A_2\rightleftharpoons A_3+A_4$ are analyzed within the framework of the Boltzmann equation in the initial stage of a chemical reaction with the system far from chemical equilibrium. The Chapman-Enskog methodology is applied to determine the coefficients of the expansion of the distribution functions in terms of Sonine polynomials for peculiar molecular velocities. The results are applied to the reaction $H_2+Cl\rightleftharpoons HCl+H$, and the influence of the non-Maxwellian distribution and of the activation-energy dependent reactive cross sections upon the forward and reverse reaction rate coefficients are discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, to appear in vol.42 of the Brazilian Journal of Physic

New apparatus for DTA at 2000 bar: thermodynamic studies on Au, Ag, Al and HTSC oxides

A new DTA (Differential Thermal Analysis) device was designed and installed in a Hot Isostatic Pressure (HIP) furnace in order to perform high-pressure thermodynamic investigations up to 2 kbar and 1200C. Thermal analysis can be carried out in inert or oxidising atmosphere up to p(O2) = 400 bar. The calibration of the DTA apparatus under pressure was successfully performed using the melting temperature (Tm) of pure metals (Au, Ag and Al) as standard calibration references. The thermal properties of these metals have been studied under pressure. The values of DV (volume variation between liquid and solid at Tm), ROsm (density of the solid at Tm) and ALPHAm (linear thermal expansion coefficient at Tm) have been extracted. A very good agreement was found with the existing literature and new data were added. This HP-DTA apparatus is very useful for studying the thermodynamics of those systems where one or more volatile elements are present, such as high TC superconducting oxides. DTA measurements have been performed on Bi,Pb(2223) tapes up to 2 kbar under reduced oxygen partial pressure (p(O2) = 0.07 bar). The reaction leading to the formation of the 2223 phase was found to occur at higher temperatures when applying pressure: the reaction DTA peak shifted by 49C at 2 kbar compared to the reaction at 1 bar. This temperature shift is due to the higher stability of the Pb-rich precursor phases under pressure, as the high isostatic pressure prevents Pb from evaporating.Comment: 6 figures, 3 tables, Thermodynamics, Thermal property, Bi-2223, fundamental valu

Photometric AGN reverberation mapping - an efficient tool for BLR sizes, black hole masses and host-subtracted AGN luminosities

Photometric reverberation mapping employs a wide bandpass to measure the AGN continuum variations and a suitable band, usually a narrow band (NB), to trace the echo of an emission line in the broad line region (BLR). The narrow band catches both the emission line and the underlying continuum, and one needs to extract the pure emission line light curve. We performed a test on two local AGNs, PG0003+199 (=Mrk335) and Ark120, observing well-sampled broad- (B, V) and narrow-band light curves with the robotic 15cm telescope VYSOS-6 on Cerro Armazones, Chile. In PG0003+199, H_alpha dominates the flux in the NB by 85%, allowing us to measure the time lag of H_alpha against B without the need to correct for the continuum contribution. In Ark120, H_beta contributes only 50% to the flux in the NB. The cross correlation of the B and NB light curves shows two distinct peaks of similar strength, one at lag zero from the autocorrelated continuum and one from the emission line at tau_cent = 47.5 +/- 3.4 days. We constructed a synthetic H_beta light curve, by subtracting a scaled V light curve, which traces the continuum, from the NB light curve. The cross correlation of this synthetic H_beta light curve with the B light curve shows only one major peak at tau_cent = 48.0 +/- 3.3 days, while the peak from the autocorrelated continuum at lag zero is absent. We conclude that, as long as the emission line contributes at least 50% to the bandpass, the pure emission line light curve can be reconstructed from photometric monitoring data so that the time lag can be measured. For both objects the lags we find are consistent with spectroscopic reverberation results. While the dense sampling (median 2 days) enables us to determine tau_cent with small (10%) formal errors, we caution that gaps in the light curves may lead to much larger systematic uncertainties. (Abstract shortened, see the manuscript.)Comment: 12 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

High contrast optical imaging of companions: the case of the brown dwarf binary HD-130948BC

High contrast imaging at optical wavelengths is limited by the modest correction of conventional near-IR optimized AO systems.We take advantage of new fast and low-readout-noise detectors to explore the potential of fast imaging coupled to post-processing techniques to detect faint companions to stars at small separations. We have focused on I-band direct imaging of the previously detected brown dwarf binary HD130948BC,attempting to spatially resolve the L2+L2 benchmark system. We used the Lucky-Imaging instrument FastCam at the 2.5-m Nordic Telescope to obtain quasi diffraction-limited images of HD130948 with ~0.1" resolution.In order to improve the detectability of the faint binary in the vicinity of a bright (I=5.19 \pm 0.03) solar-type star,we implemented a post-processing technique based on wavelet transform filtering of the image which allows us to strongly enhance the presence of point-like sources in regions where the primary halo dominates. We detect for the first time the BD binary HD130948BC in the optical band I with a SNR~9 at 2.561"\pm 0.007" (46.5 AU) from HD130948A and confirm in two independent dataset that the object is real,as opposed to time-varying residual speckles.We do not resolve the binary, which can be explained by astrometric results posterior to our observations that predict a separation below the NOT resolution.We reach at this distance a contrast of dI = 11.30 \pm 0.11, and estimate a combined magnitude for this binary to I = 16.49 \pm 0.11 and a I-J colour 3.29 \pm 0.13. At 1", we reach a detectability 10.5 mag fainter than the primary after image post-processing. We obtain on-sky validation of a technique based on speckle imaging and wavelet-transform processing,which improves the high contrast capabilities of speckle imaging.The I-J colour measured for the BD companion is slightly bluer, but still consistent with what typically found for L2 dwarfs(~3.4-3.6).Comment: accepted in A\&