English

Upper limits of the $^{22}$Na yield from O-Ne nova

Astrophysics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

The radioactive isotope 22^{22}Na is one of the primary tracer isotopes that may potentially be detectable by gamma-ray spectroscopy. This isotope is predicted to be produced in ONe nova explosions, yet no detection of its 1.275 MeV gamma-ray signature has been reported so far. In particular, 6 years of COMPTEL observations of the galactic bulge, a region that should be particularily rich in nova explosions, have only led to an upper-limit. In this paper we will present the implications of the COMPTEL upper flux limit on the permissible 22^{22}Na yield for ONe novae. We base our analysis on extensive Monte-Carlo simulations of galactic 1.275 MeV emission that were constrained by the most recent results of galactic nova rates and distributions. We demonstrate that the non-detection of the 1.275 MeV line from the galactic bulge implies a solid upper 22^{22}Na yield limit in agreement with current theoretical nucleosynthesis calculations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0106340,
  title  = {Upper limits of the $^{22}$Na yield from O-Ne nova},
  author = {P. Jean and J. Knödlseder and P. von Ballmoos and J. Gómez-Gomar and M. Hernanz and J. José},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0106340},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

5 pages, 6 figures, Contributed paper at the 4th INTEGRAL Workshop, 4-8 September 2000, Alicante (Spain). To be published in the ESA-SP series