SEEING THE COLLISION OF A SUPERNOVA WITH ITS COMPANION STAR

By D. Kasen. 2009

266 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The progenitors of Type Ia and some core collapse supernovae are thought to be stars in binary systems, but little direct observational evidence exists to confirm the hypothesis. We show that the collision of the supernova ejecta with its companion star should produce detectable emission in the hours and days following the explosion. The interaction occurs at distances ∼1011–1013 cm and shocks the impacting supernova debris, dissipating kinetic energy and re-heating the gas. Initially, some radiation may escape promptly through the evacuated region of the shadowcone, producing a bright X-ray (0.1–2 keV) burst lasting minutes to hours with luminosity L ∼ 1044 ergs s−1. Continuing radiative diffusion from deeper layers of shock-heated ejecta produces a longer lasting optical/UV emission, which exceeds the radioactively powered luminosity of the supernova for the first few days after the explosion. These signatures are prominent for viewing angles looking down upon the shocked region, or about 10% of the time. The properties of the emission provide a straightforward measure of the separation distance between the stars and hence (assuming Roche lobe overflow) the companion's radius. Current optical and UV data sets likely already constrain red giant companions. By systematically acquiring early time data for many supernovae, it may eventually be possible to empirically determine how the parameters of the progenitor system influence the outcome of the explosion.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/40038ca9a1ea13f120d45fa9d14c5777ee589782

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. B. Metzger
2. E. Berger
3. F. Mannucci
4. D. Maoz
5. Stan Woosley
6. E. Quataert
7. D. Kasen
8. N. Smith

Citations in the corpus

• Type-Ia Supernova Rates and the Progenitor Problem: A Review (2011, unknown): “…Foley et al. 2012, and Ganeshalingam et al. (2011), all place observational limits on the presence of shock signatures of red-giant donors in the light curves of SNe Ia with good early-time coverage, shocks that are expected from the ejecta hitting the companion, as calculated by Kasen (2010).”
• Hubble Space Telescope spectra of the type Ia supernova SN 2011fe: a tail of low-density, high-velocity material with Z < Z⊙ (2013, methodology): “N11 used their earliest light-curve point (MJD 55797.2) and the earlier non-detections (Section 3.1), together with the analytical early-emission models of Rabinak et al. (2012) and Kasen (2010), to constrain the progenitor radius toRprog .”
• Sub-Chandrasekhar-mass White Dwarf Detonations Revisited (2017, background): “…(MCh) scenario is responsible for the bulk of SNe Ia (e.g., Leonard 2007; Shen & Bildsten 2007; Kerzendorf et al. 2009; Ruiter et al. 2009; Kasen 2010; Bloom et al. 2012; Schaefer & Pagnotta 2012; Woods & Gilfanov 2013; Scalzo et al. 2014; Johansson et al. 2016; Dhawan et al. 2017).”
• Core-collapse explosions of Wolf–Rayet stars and the connection to Type IIb/Ib/Ic supernovae (2011, background): “As discussed above, an attractive solution to this is emissionfrom the collision of the SN ejecta with a companion star (Kasen 2010).”
• THE LONG-TERM EVOLUTION OF DOUBLE WHITE DWARF MERGERS (2011, background): “…Stefano et al. 2006; Di Stefano 2010; Gilfanov & Bogdán 2010; Li et al. 2011) and on the SN Ia ejecta’s interaction with a donor (Marietta et al. 2000; Kasen 2010; Hayden et al. 2010; Bianco et al. 2011; Nugent et al. 2011; Bloom et al. 2012) severely constrain the red giant donor channel’s…”
• DISCOVERY, PROGENITOR AND EARLY EVOLUTION OF A STRIPPED ENVELOPE SUPERNOVA iPTF13bvn (2013, background): “…a supernova, which is sensitive to the progenitor size, explosion energy and the composition of the outer layers (e.g., Nakar & Sari 2010; Rabinak & Waxman 2011; Bersten et al. 2012; Piro & Nakar 2013), and in some propitious cases can even diagnose the presence of a binary companion (Kasen 2010).”
• Three Hypervelocity White Dwarfs in Gaia DR2: Evidence for Dynamically Driven Double-degenerate Double-detonation Type Ia Supernovae (2018, background): “…which may not be surprising given other mounting evidence that single degenerate scenarios cannot be responsible for the bulk of SNe Ia (e.g., Leonard 2007; Kasen 2010; Gilfanov & Bogdán 2010; Li et al. 2011b; Bloom et al. 2012; Olling et al. 2015; Maguire et al. 2016; Woods et al. 2017).”
• ACCELERATING COMPACT OBJECT MERGERS IN TRIPLE SYSTEMS WITH THE KOZAI RESONANCE: A MECHANISM FOR “PROMPT” TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE, GAMMA-RAY BURSTS, AND OTHER EXOTICA (2010, background): “Fora2 & 1 AU, the expected mass lost from the tertiary will be minimal.3 Similarly, based on the work of Kasen (2010), one expects a soft X-ray flash as the Ia shockwave overtakes the tertiary on a timescale of∼ 104 s (a2/AU) for a shockwave of∼ 104 km s−1 and a very small change to the early-time…”
• Observational Clues to the Progenitors of Type Ia Supernovae (2013, methodology): “…(2011), and Ganeshalingam, Li & Filippenko (2011) have set observational upper limits in blue optical bands in the light curves of SNe Ia with good early-time optical coverage, and have used the Kasen (2010) models to limit the presence of red-giant donors to < 20% of SN Ia progenitor systems.”
• The delay-time distribution of Type Ia supernovae from Sloan II (2012, background): “One example is the lack of early-time ultraviolet shock signatures (Kasen 2010) due to ejecta hitting a SD red-giant donor (e.g. Nugent et al. 2011; Bloom et al. 2012; Brown et al. 2012), or lack of early radio and X-ray emission, expected if the SN blast wave were to encounter a circumstellar wind…”
• EVLA OBSERVATIONS CONSTRAIN THE ENVIRONMENT AND PROGENITOR SYSTEM OF Type Ia SUPERNOVA 2011fe (2012, background): “The interaction may also be detectable as an early-time blue component in the optical SN light curve (Kasen 2010); the magnitude of this early component will depend on viewing angle and the nature of the companion, with Roche-lobe filling red giant stars producing the brightest signature.”
• On the Progenitors of Type Ia Supernovae (2018, unknown): “(i) Concerning the first possibility, the observational consequences of the ejecta interacting with a companion for the early broadband light curve have been calculated in some detail by Kasen (2010), for a red giant, a 6 M main sequence and a 2 M main-sequence companion.”
• A COMPACT DEGENERATE PRIMARY-STAR PROGENITOR OF SN 2011fe (2011, background): “A number of analytical models for the early luminosity have been constructed under the assumption of spherical symmetry (e.g., Chevalier 1992; Chevalier & Fransson 2008; Piro et al. 2010; Kasen 2010; Nakar & Sari 2010; Rabinak & Waxman 2011; Rabinak et al. 2011).”