T CrB: overview of the accretion history, Roche-lobe filling, orbital solution, and radiative modeling
(abridged) We aim to derive a robust estimate of the most important parameters describing the physical nature of T CrB, trace the accretion history onto its white dwarf, and account for the unexpected delay in the occurrence of the new outburst: the SAP prior to 1946 was brighter, and it was followed by the nova eruption within 6 months from its conclusion. This time the 2015-2023 SAP has been fainter and two years past its conclusion no new eruption has yet taken place. During 2005-2025, a period covering SAP and the preceding quiescence, we collected a massive amount of photometric and spectroscopic observations that we have analyzed together with Swift UVOT data. Guided by the results of the orbital solution and in particular by the radiative modeling to which we subjected the whole set of available data, we found for T CrB a binary period of 227.5528 days, an inclination of 61 deg, and masses of 1.35 Msun and 0.93 Msun for the white dwarf and the M3III companion, respectively, making mass transfer dynamically stable. The red giant fills completely its Roche lobe, and at Vrot sin(i)=4.75 +-0.26 km/s it is rotating much slower that the 16 km/s co-rotation value. The ~20 deg azimuth of the hot spot, implied by the hump shaping the optical light curve in quiescence, fixes the outer radius of the disk to 58 Rsun, the same as the canonical value expected from disk theory. In quiescence the disk is cold and mostly neutral. SAP has been caused by an inside-out collapse of the disk, during which the mean accretion rate onto the WD has been ~28x larger than in quiescence. SAP ended in April 2023, but from May 2024 mass-flow has intensively resumed at disk inner radii while the collapse wave reached the outer portions of the disk; the consequent revamp in mass accretion could fill the gap inherited by the fainter 2015-2023 SAP and eventually lead the WD accreted shell to ignition.