The progenitor mass of the Type IIP supernova SN 2004et from late-time spectral modeling

By A. Jerkstrand, C. Fransson, K. Maguire, S. Smartt, M. Ergon, J. Spyromilio. 2012

149 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Massive stars live fast and die young. They shine furiously for a few million years, during which time they synthesize most of the heavy elements in the universe in their cores. They end by blowing themselves up in a powerful explosion known as a supernova (SN). During this process, the core collapses to a neutron star or a black hole, while the outer layers are expelled with velocities of thousands of kilometers per second. The resulting fireworks often outshine the entire host galaxy for many weeks. The explosion energy is eventually radiated away, but powering of the newborn nebula continues by radioactive isotopes synthesized in the explosion. The ejecta are now quite transparent, and we can see the material produced in the deep interiors of the star. To interpret the observations, detailed spectral modeling is needed. This thesis aims to develop and apply state-of-the-art computational tools for interpreting and modeling SN observations in the nebular phase. This requires calculation of the physical conditions throughout the nebula, including non-thermal processes from the radioactivity, thermal and statistical equilibrium, as well as radiative transport. The inclusion of multiline radiative transfer, which we compute with a Monte Carlo technique, represents one of the major advancements presented in this thesis. On February 23 1987, the first SN observable by the naked eye since 1604 exploded, SN 1987A. Its proximity has allowed unprecedented observations, which in turn have lead to significant advancements in our understanding of SN explosions. As a first application of our model, we analyze the 44Tipowered phase (t & 5 years) of SN 1987A. We find that a magnetic field is present in the nebula, trapping the positrons that provide the energy input, and resulting in strong iron lines in the spectrum. We determine the 44Ti mass to 1.5(+0.5−0.5)*10−4 M⊙. From the near-infrared spectrum at an age of 19 years, we identify strong emission lines from explosively synthesized metals such as silicon, calcium, and iron. We use integral-field spectroscopy to construct three-dimensional maps of the ejecta, showing a morphology suggesting an asymmetric explosion. The model is then applied to the close-by and well-observed Type IIP SN 2004et, analyzing its ultraviolet to mid-infrared evolution. Based on its Mg I] 4571 A, Na I 5890, 5896 A, [O I] 6300, 6364 A, and [Ne II] 12.81 mm nebular emission lines, we determine its progenitor mass to be around 15 M⊙. We confirm that silicate dust, SiO, and CO have formed in the ejecta. Finally, the major optical emission lines in a sample of Type IIP SNe areanalyzed.We find that most spectral regions in Type IIP SNe are dominated by emission from the massive hydrogen envelope, which explains the relatively small variation seen in the sample. We also show that the similar line profiles seen from all elements suggest extensive mixing occurring in most hydrogenrich SNe.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3c5ba31aecff1ccefe75115631d7c5e131cf3f0f

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Bernhard Müller
2. S. Smartt
3. Hans-Thomas Janka
4. S. Valenti
5. Adam Burrows
6. A. Piro
7. L. Dessart
8. V. Morozova

Citations in the corpus

• Measuring the Progenitor Masses and Dense Circumstellar Material of Type II Supernovae (2017, background): “…models of the corresponding events, and does not include the numerous estimates obtained from the analytical scalings, spectra or X-ray/radio signals (see, among many others, Misra et al. 2007, Jerkstrand et al. 2012, 2014, Chakraborti et al. 2016, Dhungana et al. 2016, and Yuan et al. 2016).”
• Type II-Plateau supernova radiation: dependences on progenitor and explosion properties (2013, methodology): “…(including its mass), but provides no information on the He-core mass. Determining the totalejectamass requires the additional modeling of the nebular spectra to infer the oxygen and calcium masses (Li & McCray 1992, 1993; Jerkstrand et al. 2012), and helium-core kinematics (Dessart et al. 2010a).”
• The diversity of Type II supernova versus the similarity in their progenitors (2016, methodology): “…et al. 2014 for a discussion), and spectral synthesis modeling has been widely used to constrain the abundance of different elements in the ejecta (Mazzali et al. 2007, 2010; Dessart & Hillier 2010; Dessart et al. 2013; Jerkstrand et al. 2012, 2015a,b) and to elucidate the nature of the progenitor.”
• THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXPLOSIONS IN AXISYMMETRIC AB INITIO CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVA SIMULATIONS OF 12–25 M ⊙ ?> STARS (2012, background): “Neglect of the energy input from the 56Ni → 56Co → 56Fe decay chain by Litvinova & Nadezhin (1983, 1985) caused their results for the plateau length ∆t to be too short (cf. Jerkstrand et al. 2012).”
• Low luminosity Type II supernovae - II. Pointing towards moderate mass precursors (2014, background): “Jerkstrand et al. (2012) and Maguire et al. (2012) suggest that high progenitor mass stars (∼19 M ) produce about a factor of 2 more oxygen during their nucelosynthesis than low-mass ones (M ≤ 15 M ), hence weakness (or total absence) of these lines supports the arguments for a lower mass…”
• Observational Constraints on the Progenitors of Core-Collapse Supernovae: The Case for Missing High-Mass Stars (2015, background): “One of the leading codes for this has been devel- oped by Jerkstrand (2011), Jerkstrand, Fransson, & Kozma (2011), and Jerkstrand et al. (2012).”