A SOFIA / FORCAST Picture of Shock-Induced Dust Formation and Evolution in the Classical Nova V5668 Sgr

Conditions in the ejecta of classical novae are often suitable for the production of copious amounts of dust. Evidence for dust condensation is typically revealed by an inflection in the light curve due to obscuration of the central source by dust that can result in up to 6-8 magnitudes of extinction. The dust condensation timescale is quite brief with the transition from the onset of formation to maximum extinction taking only a few days. In many nova systems, there is evidence for simultaneous production of both carbonaceous and oxygen-rich dust species in the ejecta. Recent theoretical work by Derdzinki et al. (2017 MNRAS, submitted) suggests that the observational evidence for both rapid dust condensation and mixed chemistry can potentially be explained by shocks in the ejecta outflow.The classical nova V5668 Sgr (Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2) was discovered on 2015 March 15.6 UT. Carbon monoxide, typically a harbinger of dust formation in novae, was detected in the system only 12 days later (Banerjee et al. 2015) with dust in evidence shortly thereafter. Here we present spectra of V5668 Sgr obtained with the FORCAST mid-infrared instrument on-board the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) and the Near-Infrared Camera/Spectrograph (NICS) on the 1.2-m Mt. Abu Infrared Observatory. These data include observations from the very start of dust condensation, from the epoch of maximum extinction, and from two epochs at the late stages of evolution as the ejecta were dispersed. We identify the mixed chemistry dust species in the ejecta, assess the conditions in the ejecta giving rise to the dust, and analyze the abundances in the ejecta to understand the processes of dust formation and evolution in the context of the shock-induced dust formation model.