A Hubble Space Telescope Survey for Novae in M87. II. Snuffing out the Maximum Magnitude–Rate of Decline Relation for Novae as a Non-standard Candle, and a Prediction of the Existence of Ultrafast Novae

The extensive grid of numerical simulations of nova eruptions of Yaron et al. (2005) first predicted that some classical novae might deviate significantly from Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. Department of Astrophysics, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West and 79th Street, New York, NY 10024-5192, USA Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, United Kingdom Department of Physics and Space Sciences, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL 32901, USA National Optical Astronomy Observatory, P.O. Box 26732, Tucson, AZ 85726, USA KIPAC, SLAC, 2575 Sand Hill Road, M/S 29, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA School of Physics and Astronomy, Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel CSIRO, Astronomy and Space Science, P.O. Box 76, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia N. Copernicus Astronomical Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, Bartycka 18, PL 00-716 Warsaw, Poland California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, MC 278-17, Pasadena CA 91125, USA Department of Geosciences, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel Department of Physics & Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, L8S 4M1, Ontario, Canada Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel