XMM-Newton observations of Nova LMC 2000^*

¹ Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, 85741 Garching, Germany
² INAF – National Institute for Astrophysics, Osservatorio Astronomico di Torino, Strada Osservatorio 20, 10025 Pino Torinese, Italy
³ Department of Astronomy, 475 N. Charter Str., Madison WI 53706, USA
⁴ XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre, ESA, Villafranca del Castillo, PO Box 50727, 28080 Madrid, Spain

Corresponding author: J. Greiner, jcg@mpe.mpg.de

Received: 28 February 2003
Accepted: 18 April 2003

Abstract

We report on three X-ray observations of Nova LMC 2000 with XMM-Newton at 17, 51 and 294 days after the maximum, respectively. X-ray spectral fits show a concordant decrease of the absorbing column and the X-ray luminosity. No supersoft X-ray emission is detected. The mass of the ejected shell is determined to be (less than)  . Though data are sparse, one interesting correlation becomes visible: sources with a long-duration supersoft X-ray phase have shorter orbital periods than those with short or no supersoft X-ray phase. This can be understood considering that (i) enough matter has to be accreted in order to ignite the H burning, and (ii) that H burning ceases when the mass of the remaining material (after shell ejection and burning) drops below a certain limit under which the temperature at the bottom of the envelope is too low for the shell burning to compensate the energy loss from the surface.