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OGLE Atlas of Classical Novae

I. Galactic Bulge Objects

Eruptions of classical novae are possible sources of lithium formation and γ-ray emission. Nova remnants can also become Type Ia supernovae. The contribution of novae to these phenomena depends on nova rates that are not well established for the Galaxy. We directly measured the Galactic bulge nova rate of 13.9±2.6 per year. This measurement is much more accurate than any previous measurement of this kind thanks to many years' monitoring of the bulge by the OGLE survey.

The long-term monitoring allowed us to not only measure the nova rate but also to study in detail the light curves of 39 eruptions and over 80 post-nova candidates. We measured orbital periods for 9 post-novae and 9 novae, in 14 cases we procured the first estimates.

The OGLE survey is very sensitive to the frequently erupting recurrent novae. We did not find any object similar to M31 2008-12a, which erupts once a year. The lack of detection indicates a very small number of them in the Galactic bulge.

The time-series photometry of objects presented in this paper is available from the OGLE Internet Archive.

PLEASE cite the following paper when using the data or referring to these OGLE results: Mróz et al., 2015, ApJS, 219, 26.

Any comments about the data and the form of their presentation are welcome. Send your messages to this address.

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