Flows and Shocks: Some Recent Developments in Symbiotic Star and Nova Research

Abstract: There have been several surprising developments in our understanding of symbiotic binary stars and nova eruptions over the last decade or so based on multiwavelength data. For example, symbiotic stars without shell burning on their white dwarfs have been revealed through their X-ray emission, UV excess, and UV variability. These purely accretion powered symbiotic stars have much weaker optical emission lines than those with shell burning, and are therefore harder to discover. Yet they may be as numerous as symbiotic stars with shell burning. Interestingly, both types of symbiotic stars are capable of driving strong outflows, leading to colliding wind X-ray emission and spatially resolved jets. For nova eruptions, the most surprising discovery has been that they are capable of particle acceleration as evidenced by Fermi detection of novae as transient GeV gamma-ray sources. For nova eruptions in cataclysmic variables, this implicates internal shocks, between a slow, dense outflow and a fast outflow or wind. Other signatures of shocks include thermal X-rays and non-thermal radio emissions, and a substantial fraction of optical emission may be shock-powered in the early phase of novae. Radio (V959 Mon) and HST (V959 Mon and T Pyx) images of nova shells within a few years of their respective eruptions suggest that the ejecta from a nova may commonly consist of an equatorial ring and a bipolar outflow.