Detection of hard X-ray emission from Nova Sgr 2012 with Swift
ATel #4110; Thomas Nelson (Minnesota), Koji Mukai (UMBC and NASA/GSFC), Jennifer Sokoloski (Columbia), Laura Chomiuk (NRAO and CfA), Michael Rupen (NRAO) and Amy Mioduszewski (NRAO)
on 11 May 2012; 19:14 UT
Credential Certification: Thomas Nelson (tnelson@physics.umn.edu)
Subjects: Ultra-Violet, X-ray, Nova
We observed Nova Sgr 2012 (PNV J17452791-2305213) with the Swift satellite on 2012 May 10, 40 days after the discovery of this nova. The total exposure time with the XRT instrument was 6280 s. In contrast to the non-detections reported in ATels #4061 and #4088, Swift/XRT clearly detected X-ray emission from the nova on 2012 May 10.
A total of 249 source counts were detected within a circular region with a radius of 20 pixels centered on the position of the nova, resulting in a 0.3-10 keV count rate of 0.039 c/s. The source spectrum was quite hard, with emission detected at energies up to 10 keV. Modeling the spectrum as an absorbed thermal plasma with the APEC model in XSpec, we find a best fit N(H) of (3 +/- 1) x 10^21 cm^-2, and a lower limit to the plasma temperature of 2.7 x 10^8 K (kT > 23 keV). The 0.3-10 keV flux is 2.7e-12 erg/s/cm^2.
The UVOT instrument obtained images in the UVM2 band, with a total exposure time of 6213 s. Nova Sgr 2012 was detected with an average UVM2 magnitude of 16.0 +/- 0.2.
These observations were obtained as part of the E-Nova project (formerly the EVLA Nova Project, see link below), an effort to obtain high quality radio light curves and complimentary multiwavelength observations of novae visible to the Jansky Very Large Array.
E-Nova Project
