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I will report on the 2010 eruption of the recurrent nova U Scorpii. This
outburst was predicted in 2005 and discovered on 28 January 2010 as a
result
of a monitoring program coordinated by our group at LSU in conjunction
with
the AAVSO. The eruption lasted approximately 64 days, over the course of
which more than 35,000 observations were made in all wavelengths from
radio
to X-ray.
I will present multi-wavelength light curves
(UBVRIJHKby+UV+X-ray)
of the entire eruption which show the overall speed of the eruption,
the expected first plateau, the unexpected second plateau,
and the return to quiescence. The onset of the optical plateau
coincided with the turn-on of the supersoft X-ray emission and the reemergence of the eclipses. Our
comprehensive coverage allowed us to discover new fine-scale phenomena as
well, such as flares of up to 0.5 mag in amplitude during the initial fast
decline which are as yet unexplained and late aperiodic dips (distinct
from
the well-known eclipses) that are likely caused by accretion disk
geometry. |
