Large
Magellanic Cloud Novae 13 Days After Peak Brightness
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William Liller
Center
for Nova Studies, Casilla 5022, Viña del Mar, Chile
Raquel Yumi Shida
Departamento
de Astronomia, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
Presented
at a memorial symposium in honor of Dr. Janet A. Mattei, Brandeis University,
Waltham MA, October 29, 2004; received January 19, 2005; revised February 24,
2005; accepted February 24, 2005
Abstract If two novae, one fast and one slow, were
to go off simultaneously in a distant galaxy, the fast one would be the
brighter of the two. But this means that at some point in time after peak
brightness, the two novae, fading at different rates, would become equal in
brightness. From a study of recent novae in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC),
we find that 13 days is, on the average, that interval of time, and the average
absolute magnitude then is MV = -6.32
± 0.17. This result is markedly
different from that obtained for galactic novae.
