Light-Echoes from the Plateau in Eta Carinae's Great Eruption
Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 1–?? (2012) Printed 6 August 2018 (MN LATEX style file v2.2) Light-echoes from the plateau in Eta Carinae’s Great Eruption reveal a two-stage shock-powered event⋆ Nathan Smith1†, Jennifer E. Andrews1, Armin Rest2, Federica B. Bianco3,4, Jose L. Prieto5,6,Tom Matheson7, David J. James8, R. Chris Smith9, Giovanni Maria Strampelli2,10, and A. Zenteno9 1Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 N. Cherry Ave., Tucson, AZ 85721, USA 2Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA 3Center for Urban Science and Progress, New York University, 1 MetroTech Center, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA 4Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA 5N´ucleo de Astronom´ıa de la Facultad de Ingenier´ıa, Universidad Diego Portales, Av. Ej´ercito 441, Santiago, Chile 6Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, Santiago, Chile 7National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA 8Event Horizon Telescope, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory MS 42, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA 9Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Colina El Pino S/N, La Serena, Chile 10Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain 6 August 2018 ABSTRACT We present multi-epoch photometry and spectroscopy of a light echo from η Cari- nae’s 19th century Great Eruption. This echo shows a steady decline over a decade, sampling the 1850s plateau of the eruption. Spectra show the bulk outflow speed in- creasing from ∼150 km s−1 at early times, up to ∼600 km s−1 in the plateau.
[Show full text]