Studies of Novae in the 20th Century

A nova outburst is not only the third most violent explosion that can occur in a galaxy, it is the largest hydrogen bomb in the Universe. The last meeting devoted purely to studies of novae was held in Madrid in 1989. At that time IUE spectra of novae were just beginning to be analyzed in detail, the EXOSAT x‐ray results had just been published, and ROSAT had yet to be launched. Since that time, the IUE studies of novae in the LMC (known distance and small reddening) showed that all fast novae exceed the Eddington luminosity at maximum which was not predicted by numerical hydrodynamic simulations. A number of novae have now been observed in x‐rays with ROSAT, BEPPOSAX, ASCA, CHANDRA, and XMM (plus others). The x‐ray studies determined the turn off times for several classical novae, showed that at maximum x‐ray light they resemble the Super Soft Sources, and found rapid variations in the x‐ray light curves of two novae. There have been abundance analyses of V838 Her (oxygen poor, sulfur rich), LMC 1991, and other classical and recurrent novae. Infrared studies have resulted in a number of puzzling results such as the same nova producing both carbon (first) and silicate (later) dust at different times during its outburst. There have been advances in theoretical modeling and most studies now include large nuclear reaction networks combined with the hydrodynamic calculations. One perplexing problem produced by the simulations is that they predict that much less mass is ejected in the outburst than is observed, and the problem has worsened as the input physics has improved. Nevertheless we have made significant progress in the past 100 years and I will present some of the more important developments that have occurred over the past century. I will end with a list of questions to be answered.A nova outburst is not only the third most violent explosion that can occur in a galaxy, it is the largest hydrogen bomb in the Universe. The last meeting devoted purely to studies of novae was held in Madrid in 1989. At that time IUE spectra of novae were just beginning to be analyzed in detail, the EXOSAT x‐ray results had just been published, and ROSAT had yet to be launched. Since that time, the IUE studies of novae in the LMC (known distance and small reddening) showed that all fast novae exceed the Eddington luminosity at maximum which was not predicted by numerical hydrodynamic simulations. A number of novae have now been observed in x‐rays with ROSAT, BEPPOSAX, ASCA, CHANDRA, and XMM (plus others). The x‐ray studies determined the turn off times for several classical novae, showed that at maximum x‐ray light they resemble the Super Soft Sources, and found rapid variations in the x‐ray light curves of two novae. There have been abundance analyses of V838 Her (oxygen poor, sulfur rich), LMC 1991, an...