An Optically Motivated Gamma-Ray Study of Fermi-LAT Novae
- 1City University of New York
- 2American Museum of Natural History
Abstract
High-energy (GeV) γ -ray emission from nova eruptions was a surprise detection by the Fermi-LAT in 2010. Since then, it has been suggested that the γ -rays from these systems are generated in collisionless nonrelativistic shocks. In this theory, the observed correlation between optical and γ -ray nova lightcurves naturally arises if a portion of the optical luminosity is reprocessed shock power. In this work, we investigate this scenario by analyzing Fermi-LAT-detected novae in varied time bins and then correlating the bin size that maximizes the nova’s significance ( t γ * ) with the nova’s optical eruption data. Furthermore, we investigate whether there is a common optical decay across the sources’ measured t γ * values in the population. We find that across our population, a nova’s t ₃ (the time it takes the nova V -band brightness to decay 3 magnitudes) appears to be the favored analysis bin that optimizes the Fermi-LAT detection significance, although there is significant spread. Additionally, we report V679 Car, a source previously noted as a marginally detected γ -ray nova, as a >5 σ detection in this work. We perform cross-correlation analysis of γ -ray and optical lightcurves.
Versions
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BibTeX
@article{henry2026optically,
title = {{An Optically Motivated Gamma-Ray Study of Fermi-LAT Novae}},
author = {Owen K. Henry and Timothy A. D. Paglione and David Zurek and Joshua Tan},
journal = {The Astrophysical Journal},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/ae9cb6},
url = {https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae9cb6},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - An Optically Motivated Gamma-Ray Study of Fermi-LAT Novae
AU - Owen K. Henry
AU - Timothy A. D. Paglione
AU - David Zurek
AU - Joshua Tan
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/06
JO - The Astrophysical Journal
DO - 10.3847/1538-4357/ae9cb6
UR - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae9cb6
AB - High-energy (GeV) γ -ray emission from nova eruptions was a surprise detection by the Fermi-LAT in 2010. Since then, it has been suggested that the γ -rays from these systems are generated in collisionless nonrelativistic shocks. In this theory, the observed correlation between optical and γ -ray nova lightcurves naturally arises if a portion of the optical luminosity is reprocessed shock power. In this work, we investigate this scenario by analyzing Fermi-LAT-detected novae in varied time bins and then correlating the bin size that maximizes the nova’s significance ( t γ * ) with the nova’s optical eruption data. Furthermore, we investigate whether there is a common optical decay across the sources’ measured t γ * values in the population. We find that across our population, a nova’s t ₃ (the time it takes the nova V -band brightness to decay 3 magnitudes) appears to be the favored analysis bin that optimizes the Fermi-LAT detection significance, although there is significant spread. Additionally, we report V679 Car, a source previously noted as a marginally detected γ -ray nova, as a >5 σ detection in this work. We perform cross-correlation analysis of γ -ray and optical lightcurves.
SN - 0004-637X
SN - 1538-4357
ER -