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R.W. Russell, D.K. Lynch (The Aerospace Corporation), M.L. Sitko (U. Cincinnati)
We report 3 – 14 µm spectroscopy of the nova on Jan 31.45 2001 UT using BASS on the IRTF approximately one month after the object was discovered. The spectrum (W cm-2 µm-1) revealed only a smooth, featureless continuum that decreased monotonically with increasing wavelengths between 3 and 13.6 µm. Its slope is close to l-1.5, much shallower than the Rayleigh-Jeans tail of a black body. The spectrum was consistent with thermal emission from gray (constant)-emissivity dust whose temperatures ranged from around 280 K to upwards of 1300 K. IR magnitudes were L = 2.8, M = 1.6, N = -0.27, all ± 0.05. The presence of such strong IR continuum emission so early after the nova’s outburst suggests that this object is a recurrent nova and has undergone previous outbursts and dust formation events. This work supported by The Aerospace Corporation’s Independent Research and Development program and by the US Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center through the Mission Oriented Investigation and Experimentation program, under contract F4701-00-C-0009.
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