A Hubble Space Telescope Survey for Novae in M87. I. Light and Color Curves, Spatial Distributions, and the Nova Rate

The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged the central part of M87 over a 10 week span, leading to the discovery of 32 classical novae (CNe) and nine fainter, likely very slow, and/or symbiotic novae. In this first paper of a series, we present the M87 nova finder charts, and the light and color curves of the novae. We demonstrate that the rise and decline times, and the colors of M87 novae are uncorrelated with each other and with position in the galaxy. The spatial distribution of the M87 novae follows the light of the galaxy, suggesting that novae accreted by M87 during cannibalistic episodes are well-mixed. Conservatively using only the 32 brightest CNe we derive a nova rate for M87: 363^(+33)_(-45)novae yr^(−1). We also derive the luminosity-specific classical nova rate for this galaxy, which is 7.88^(+2.3)_(-2.6) yr^(-1)/10^(10) L⊙K. Both rates are 3–4 times higher than those reported for M87 in the past, and similarly higher than those reported for all other galaxies. We suggest that most previous ground-based surveys for novae in external galaxies, including M87, miss most faint, fast novae, and almost all slow novae near the centers of galaxies

A Hubble Space Telescope survey for novae in M87 – III. Are novae good standard candles 15 d after maximum brightness?

Ten weeks of daily imaging of the giant elliptical galaxy M87 with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has yielded 41 nova light curves of unprecedented quality for extragalactic cataclysmic variables. We have recently used these light curves to demonstrate that the observational scatter in the so-called maximum-magnitude rate of decline (MMRD) relation for classical novae is so large as to render the nova-MMRD useless as a standard candle. Here, we demonstrate that a modified Buscombe–de Vaucouleurs hypothesis, namely that novae with decline times t_2 > 10 d converge to nearly the same absolute magnitude about two weeks after maximum light in a giant elliptical galaxy, is supported by our M87 nova data. For 13 novae with daily sampled light curves, well determined times of maximum light in both the F606W and F814W filters, and decline times t_2 > 10 d we find that M87 novae display M_(606W,15) = −6.37 ± 0.46 and M_(814W,15) = −6.11 ± 0.43. If very fast novae with decline times t_2 < 10 d are excluded, the distances to novae in elliptical galaxies with stellar binary populations similar to those of M87 should be determinable with 1σ accuracies of ± 20 per cent with the above calibrations

A Hubble Space Telescope survey for novae in M87 – III. Are novae good standard candles 15 d after maximum brightness?

Ten weeks of daily imaging of the giant elliptical galaxy M87 with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has yielded 41 nova light curves of unprecedented quality for extragalactic cataclysmic variables. We have recently used these light curves to demonstrate that the observational scatter in the so-called maximum-magnitude rate of decline (MMRD) relation for classical novae is so large as to render the nova-MMRD useless as a standard candle. Here, we demonstrate that a modified Buscombe–de Vaucouleurs hypothesis, namely that novae with decline times t_2 > 10 d converge to nearly the same absolute magnitude about two weeks after maximum light in a giant elliptical galaxy, is supported by our M87 nova data. For 13 novae with daily sampled light curves, well determined times of maximum light in both the F606W and F814W filters, and decline times t_2 > 10 d we find that M87 novae display M_(606W,15) = −6.37 ± 0.46 and M_(814W,15) = −6.11 ± 0.43. If very fast novae with decline times t_2 < 10 d are excluded, the distances to novae in elliptical galaxies with stellar binary populations similar to those of M87 should be determinable with 1σ accuracies of ± 20 per cent with the above calibrations