@article{41043371090c467ab1ce7304e03eeeca,
title = "Localized thermonuclear bursts from accreting magnetic white dwarfs",
abstract = "Nova explosions are caused by global thermonuclear runaways triggered in the surface layers of accreting white dwarfs1–3. It has been predicted4–6 that localized thermonuclear bursts on white dwarfs can also take place, similar to type-I X-ray bursts observed in accreting neutron stars. Unexplained rapid bursts from the binary system TV Columbae, in which mass is accreted onto a moderately strong magnetized white dwarf from a low-mass companion, have been observed on several occasions in the past 40 years7–11. During these bursts, the optical/ultraviolet luminosity increases by a factor of more than three in less than an hour and fades in around ten hours. Fast outflows have been observed in ultraviolet spectral lines7, with velocities of more than 3,500 kilometres per second, comparable to the escape velocity from the white dwarf surface. Here we report on optical bursts observed in TV Columbae and in two additional accreting systems, EI Ursae Majoris and ASASSN-19bh. The bursts have a total energy of approximately 10−6 times than those of classical nova explosions (micronovae) and bear a strong resemblance to type-I X-ray bursts12–14. We exclude accretion or stellar magnetic reconnection events as their origin and suggest thermonuclear runaway events in magnetically confined accretion columns as a viable explanation.",
author = "S. Scaringi and Groot, {P. J.} and C. Knigge and Bird, {A. J.} and E. Breedt and Buckley, {D. A.H.} and Y. Cavecchi and Degenaar, {N. D.} and {de Martino}, D. and C. Done and M. Fratta and K. I{\l}kiewicz and E. Koerding and Lasota, {J. P.} and C. Littlefield and Manara, {C. F.} and M. O{\textquoteright}Brien and P. Szkody and Timmes, {F. X.}",
note = "Funding Information: P.J.G. is supported by the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) SARChI grant no. 111692. D.A.H.B. acknowledges research support from the South African National Research Foundation. D.d.M. acknowledges financial support from the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) under agreements ASI-INAF I/037/12/0 and ASI-INAF n.2017-14-H.0, and from INAF {\textquoteleft}Sostegno alla ricerca scientifica main streams dell{\textquoteright}INAF{\textquoteright}, Presidential Decree 43/2018, from INAF {\textquoteleft}SKA/CTA projects{\textquoteright}, Presidential Decree 70/2016, and from PHAROS COST Action N.16214. C.D. and K.I. acknowledge funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) consolidator grant no. ST/T000244/1. J.-P.L. was supported in part by a grant from the French Space Agency CNES. P.S. acknowledges support from National Science Foundation (NSF) grant no. AST-1514737. F.X.T. is supported by the NSF under grant no. ACI-1663684 for the MESA Project, and by the NSF under grant no. PHY-1430152 for the Physics Frontier Center Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics Center for the Evolution of the Elements (JINA-CEE). This paper includes data collected by the TESS mission. Funding for the TESS mission is provided by the NASA{\textquoteright}s Science Mission Directorate. Some of the data presented in this paper were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST). The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract no. NAS5-26555. Support for MAST for non-Hubble Space Telescope data is provided by the NASA Office of Space Science by grant no. NNX09AF08G and by other grants and contracts. This paper uses data from the ASAS-SN project run by the Ohio State University. We thank the ASAS-SN team for making their data publicly available. This work has also made use of data from the European Space Agency mission Gaia ( https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia ), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium ). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. The study is based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) under ESO-DDT programme 107.2309.001, for which we acknowledge support from the ESO Director-General. Funding Information: P.J.G. is supported by the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) SARChI grant no. 111692. D.A.H.B. acknowledges research support from the South African National Research Foundation. D.d.M. acknowledges financial support from the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) under agreements ASI-INAF I/037/12/0 and ASI-INAF n.2017-14-H.0, and from INAF {\textquoteleft}Sostegno alla ricerca scientifica main streams dell{\textquoteright}INAF{\textquoteright}, Presidential Decree 43/2018, from INAF {\textquoteleft}SKA/CTA projects{\textquoteright}, Presidential Decree 70/2016, and from PHAROS COST Action N.16214. C.D. and K.I. acknowledge funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) consolidator grant no. ST/T000244/1. J.-P.L. was supported in part by a grant from the French Space Agency CNES. P.S. acknowledges support from National Science Foundation (NSF) grant no. AST-1514737. F.X.T. is supported by the NSF under grant no. ACI-1663684 for the MESA Project, and by the NSF under grant no. PHY-1430152 for the Physics Frontier Center Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics Center for the Evolution of the Elements (JINA-CEE). This paper includes data collected by the TESS mission. Funding for the TESS mission is provided by the NASA{\textquoteright}s Science Mission Directorate. Some of the data presented in this paper were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST). The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract no. NAS5-26555. Support for MAST for non-Hubble Space Telescope data is provided by the NASA Office of Space Science by grant no. NNX09AF08G and by other grants and contracts. This paper uses data from the ASAS-SN project run by the Ohio State University. We thank the ASAS-SN team for making their data publicly available. This work has also made use of data from the European Space Agency mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. The study is based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) under ESO-DDT programme 107.2309.001, for which we acknowledge support from the ESO Director-General. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.",
year = "2022",
month = apr,
day = "21",
doi = "10.1038/s41586-022-04495-6",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "604",
pages = "447--450",
journal = "Nature",
issn = "0028-0836",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
number = "7906",
}