Infrared Evolution of a Stellar Merger
Abstract
Mergers between nondegenerate stars are thought to eventually be the fate of a significant fraction of all binaries, and to affect the evolution of stellar clusters and some types of galactic centers. We request a set of IRAC observations to perform photometry of the first stellar merger ever "caught in the act". The WISE data show that, in the bandpasses which are comparable to IRAC's, two years after the merger the remnant object was still several orders of magnitude brighter that the pre-merger system. New IRAC observations obtained this year will help to clarify the time scale and physical nature of the IR emission variations. The new Spitzer data will be combined with pre-merger Spitzer observations, WISE data, and contemporaneous ground-based J, H, and K photometric monitoring in order to characterize the evolution of the infrared SED of this type of object for the first time.
- Publication:
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Spitzer Proposal
- Pub Date:
- April 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012sptz.prop80258M