BVRI photometry of DQ Herculis in 2014
Abstract
The results of BV RI photometry of the nova DQ Her 1934 performed at the Maidanak Observatory of the Astronomical Institute of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences in October 2014 are presented. The system’s brightness, the out-of-eclipse color indices, and the shape of the minima in the BV RI light curves, which are due to eclipses of the white dwarf with its accreting disk-like envelope by the red dwarf, correspond to one of the lowest activity levels observed during the system’s deepest relaxation after a nova outburst. The orbital-phase variations of the color indices indicate the presence of a considerably non-uniform brightness distribution for light coming from the disk-like envelope and other gaseous structures of DQ Her, which are observed at orbital phases of 0.85–1.15. The results can be qualitatively interpreted in a picture in which the gas flow structure is formed during mass exchange in an intermediate polar. The behavior found for the color indices could be due, for example, to the visibility in this phase interval of the passage of regions of shocks (tidal shocks, a hot line, and/or a detached shock) through the line of sight.