THE PROBLEM OF THE HIGH-MASS OF THE HOT COMPONENT IN THE RECURRENT NOVA T-CORONAE-BOREALIS SOLVED AFTER 38 YEARS

In this paper, we present long-term spectroscopic observations of the recurrent nova (RN) T CrB obtained between the years 1985 and 1996 usi ng 1.02 m and 2.34 m telescopes of the Vainu Bappu Observatory in Indi a and the long-term photoelectric photometry of the object obtained ma inly at the Skalnate Pleso Observatory and at the Hlohovec Observatory in Slovakia. On the basis of our results, we have returned to the re- analysis of the old radial-velocity measurements published by Kraft (1 958). The results obtained solve unambiguously the problem of the appa rently too high mass of the hot component of T CrB, unacceptable if it has to be a white dwarf (WD), as several independent lines of evidenc e suggest.