Search

The nova rate in the Milky Way remains largely uncertain, despite its vital importance in constraining models of Galactic chemical evolution as well as understanding progenitor channels for Type Ia supernovae. The rate has been previously estimated to be in the range of ≈10–300 yr−1, either based on extrapolations from a handful of very bright optical novae or the nova rates in nearby galaxies; both methods are subject to debatable assumptions. The total discovery rate of optical novae remains much smaller (≈5–10 yr−1) than these estimates, even with the advent of all-sky optical time-domain surveys. Here, we present a systematic sample of 12 spectroscopically confirmed Galactic novae detected in the first 17 months of Palomar Gattini-IR (PGIR), a wide-field near-infrared time-domain survey. Operating in the J band (≈1.2 μm), which is significantly less affected by dust extinction compared to optical bands, the extinction distribution of the PGIR sample is highly skewed to a large extinction values (>50% of events obscured by AV ≳ 5 mag). Using recent estimates for the distribution of Galactic mass and dust, we show that the extinction distribution of the PGIR sample is commensurate with dust models. The PGIR extinction distribution is inconsistent with that reported in previous optical searches (null-hypothesis probability <0.01%), suggesting that a large population of highly obscured novae have been systematically missed in previous optical searches. We perform the first quantitative simulation of a 3π time-domain survey to estimate the Galactic nova rate using PGIR, and derive a rate of yr−1. Our results suggest that all-sky near-infrared time-domain surveys are well poised to uncover the Galactic nova population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are undertaking the first systematic infrared (IR) census of R Coronae Borealis (RCB) stars in the Milky Way, beginning with IR light curves from the Palomar Gattini IR (PGIR) survey. The PGIR is a 30 cm J-band telescope with a 25 deg2 camera that is surveying 18,000 deg2 of the northern sky (δ > −28°) at a cadence of 2 days. We present PGIR light curves for 922 RCB candidates selected from a mid-IR color-based catalog. Of these 922, 149 are promising RCB candidates, as they show pulsations or declines similar to RCB stars. The majority of the candidates that are not RCB stars are either long-period variables (LPVs) or RV Tauri stars. We identify IR color-based criteria to better distinguish between RCB stars and LPVs. As part of a pilot spectroscopic run, we obtain NIR spectra for 26 of the 149 promising candidates and spectroscopically confirm 11 new RCB stars. We detect strong He i λ10830 features in the spectra of all RCB stars, likely originating within high-velocity (200–400 km s−1) winds in their atmospheres. Nine of these RCB stars show 12C16O and 12C18O molecular absorption features, suggesting that they are formed through a white dwarf merger. We detect quasiperiodic pulsations in the light curves of five RCB stars. The periods range between 30 and 125 days and likely originate from the strange-mode instability in these stars. Our pilot run results motivate a dedicated IR spectroscopic campaign to classify all RCB candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]