Spectropolarimetry of Supernovae

By Lifan Wang, J. C. Wheeler. 2008

297 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Overwhelming evidence has accumulated in recent years that supernova explosions are intrinsically three-dimensional phenomena with significant departures from spherical symmetry. We review the evidence derived from spectropolarimetry that has established several key results: Virtually all supernovae are significantly aspherical near maximum light; core-collapse supernovae behave differently than thermonuclear (Type Ia) supernovae; the asphericity of core-collapse supernovae is more pronounced in the inner layers, showing that the explosion process is strongly aspherical; core-collapse supernovae tend to establish a preferred direction of asymmetry; and the asphericity is stronger in the outer layers of thermonuclear supernovae, providing constraints on the burning process. We emphasize the utility of the Q/U plane as a diagnostic tool and revisit SN 1987A and SN 1993J in a contemporary context. An axially symmetric geometry can explain many basic features of core-collapse supernovae, but significant depar...

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/253996fd41422433d6f4d442aa2b97c222ba61b0

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. D. Maoz
2. A. Filippenko
3. F. Mannucci
4. D. Kasen
5. N. Smith
6. M. Kromer
7. Weidong Li
8. R. Kirshner

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

1. D. Maoz
2. R. Kirshner
3. M. Kromer
4. Friedrich K. Röpke
5. Bernhard Müller
6. F. Mannucci
7. K. Kotake
8. M. Fink

Citations in the corpus

• CONSTRAINING TYPE Ia SUPERNOVA MODELS: SN 2011fe AS A TEST CASE (2012, background): “Nevertheless, the high level of asymmetry in the merger could be in conflict with the observed spectral homogeneity of normal SNe Ia and the low level of continuum polarization observed (Wang & Wheeler 2008).”
• REVIVAL OF THE STALLED CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVA SHOCK TRIGGERED BY PRECOLLAPSE ASPHERICITY IN THE PROGENITOR STAR (2013, background): “Our 3D postbounce CCSN simulations show that aspherical perturbations in the Si/O layer can have important effects on the 3D hydrodynamics of CCSNe.”
• Three Hypervelocity White Dwarfs in Gaia DR2: Evidence for Dynamically Driven Double-degenerate Double-detonation Type Ia Supernovae (2018, background): “However, such asymmetry is at odds with the low levels of polarization measured in SNe Ia (Wang & Wheeler 2008; Bulla et al. 2016).”
• 3D deflagration simulations leaving bound remnants: a model for 2002cx-like Type Ia supernovae (2012, background): “Chornock et al. (2006) and Maund et al. (2010) presented spectropolarimetric observations of SN 2005hk and reported a line and continuum polarization on a level of a few tenths of a percent, which is typical of SNe Ia (Wang & Wheeler 2008) and requires approximately spherical explosion ejecta.”
• Observational Clues to the Progenitors of Type Ia Supernovae (2013, background): “As summarized by Wang & Wheeler (2008), SNe Ia tend to have low or zero continuum polarizations, typically fractions of a percent, and polarization is generally detected only pre- or near maximum light.”
• Three-dimensional delayed-detonation models with nucleosynthesis for Type Ia supernovae (2012, methodology): “Moreover, our set of three-dimensional full-star models captures asymmetries that potentially could be constrained by spectrapolarimetry measurements (see e.g. the review by Wang & Wheeler 2008).”
• The Observer's Guide to the Gamma-Ray Burst-Supernova Connection (2016, background): “Further enlightening clues to the geometry of SNe Ibc have arisen via polarimetric and spectropolarimetric observations (see [242] for an extensive review and Figure 12).”
• On the Progenitors of Type Ia Supernovae (2018, unknown): “Since the continuum polarization is generally not more than a fraction of a percent (e.g., Wang & Wheeler 2008), a very slight asymmetry is indicated (and even that only in the outer parts of the expanding photosphere).”
• Bolometric light curves and explosion parameters of 38 stripped-envelope core-collapse supernovae (2014, background): “It appears some degree of asphericity is near-ubiquitous in SE SNe around peak light (see the review of Wang & Wheeler 2008).”
• VARIABLE SODIUM ABSORPTION IN A LOW-EXTINCTION TYPE Ia SUPERNOVA, (2009, background): “Both SN 2006X and SN 2002bo were highly polarized (Wang et al. 2006, 2007; Wang & Wheeler 2008), suggesting that polarization measurements of SN 2007le might be very interesting as well.”
• Time-dependent three-dimensional spectrum synthesis for Type Ia supernovae (2009, background): “Large-scale asymmetries in the ejecta of SNe Ia are suggested both by observed polarimetry [see Wang & Wheeler (2008) for a review] as well as by theoretical explosion models [e.g. from an off-centre ignition condition (Röpke, Woosley & Hillebrandt 2007), a deflagration to detonation transition…”
• Violent mergers of nearly equal-mass white dwarf as progenitors of subluminous Type Ia supernovae (2011, background): “This marks an important difference to normal SNe Ia, which do not show continuum polarization (Wang & Wheeler 2008).”
• A COMPARISON OF TWO- AND THREE-DIMENSIONAL NEUTRINO-HYDRODYNAMICS SIMULATIONS OF CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE (2013, background): “Supported by accumulating supernova observations of the blast morphology (e.g., Wang & Wheeler (2008), and references therein), a number of multidimensional (multi-D) hydrodynamic simulations have been reported so far, which gives us a confidence that hydrodynamic motions associated with…”