出版社：SISSA, Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati
摘要：Classical nova outbursts are powered by thermonuclear runaways (hereafter, TNRs) that take
place in the hydrogen-rich accreted envelopes of white dwarf stars in close binary systems.
Extensive numerical simulations of nova outbursts have shown that the accreted envelopes reach
peak temperatures ranging between 100 and 400 MK, for about several hundred seconds, and
therefore, their ejecta is expected to show signatures of a significant nuclear activity. Indeed, it
has been claimed that novae can play a certain role in the enrichment of the interstellar medium
through a number of intermediate-mass elements. This includes 17O, 15N, and 13C, systematically
overproduced in huge amounts with respect to solar abundances, with a lower contribution in a
number of other species with A < 40, such as 7Li, 19F, or 26Al. Estimates of the contribution of
novae to the Galactic abundances usually rely on poorly known quantities, and implicitly
assume that novae have been the same sort of objects during the whole Galaxy's history. In this
paper, we review our understanding of classical novae and outline our current strategies to
simulate primordial (Population III) nova outbursts.
