Modeling the Multiwavelength Evolution of the V960 Mon System
Sitko, Michael; Russell, Ray W.; Hillenbrand, Lynne A.; Carvalho, Adolfo S.; Dvorak, Shawn; Hambsch, Franz-Josef; Hankins, Matthew J.; Ashley, Michael C. B.; Connelley, Michael; Hammond, Victoria
United States, Belgium, Germany, Australia
Abstract
We study the evolution of the FU Ori object V960 Mon since its outburst, using available multiwavelength photometric time series over 8 yr, complemented by several epochs of moderate-dispersion spectrophotometry. We find that the source fading can be well-described by a decrease in the temperature of the inner disk, which results from a combination of decreasing accretion rate and increasing inner disk radius. We model the system with a disk atmosphere model that produces the observed variations in multiband photometry (this paper) and high-resolution spectral lines (a companion paper).