PAIR INSTABILITY SUPERNOVAE: LIGHT CURVES, SPECTRA, AND SHOCK BREAKOUT

By D. Kasen, Stan Woosley, Alexander Heger. 2011

158 citations recorded by the source corpus.

For the initial mass range (140 M☉ < M < 260 M☉) stars die in a thermonuclear runaway triggered by the pair-production instability. The supernovae they make can be remarkably energetic (up to ∼1053 erg) and synthesize considerable amounts of radioactive isotopes. Here we model the evolution, explosion, and observational signatures of representative pair instability supernovae (PI SNe) spanning a range of initial masses and envelope structures. The predicted light curves last for hundreds of days and range in luminosity from very dim to extremely bright (L ∼ 1044 erg s−1). The most massive events are bright enough to be seen at high redshift, but the extended light curve duration (∼1 yr)—prolonged by cosmological time-dilation—may make it difficult to detect them as transients. A more promising approach may be to search for the brief and luminous outbreak occurring when the explosion shock wave first reaches the stellar surface. Using a multi-wavelength radiation-hydrodynamics code we calculate that, in the rest frame, the shock breakout transients of PI SNe reach luminosities of 1045–1046 erg s–1, peak at wavelengths ∼30–170 Å, and last for several hours. We discuss how observations of the light curves, spectra, and breakout emission can be used to constrain the mass, radius, and metallicity of the progenitor.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c843e898c8185858a8914504135bb2e1f42c25cc

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. S. Smartt
2. Stan Woosley
3. S. Valenti
4. F. Mannucci
5. D. Maoz
6. E. Livne
7. L. Dessart
8. J. Fuller

In Instrumentation

1. F. Mannucci
2. D. Maoz
3. S. Khochfar
4. Stan Woosley
5. Morgan Fraser
6. B. Paxton
7. S. Valenti
8. P. Marchant

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

1. S. Smartt
2. E. Livne
3. L. Dessart
4. J. C. Wheeler
5. D. Maoz
6. S. Valenti
7. J. Vinkó
8. E. Chatzopoulos

Citations in the corpus

• Superluminous supernovae: 56Ni power versus magnetar radiation (2012, methodology): “If they do form, their mass loss is of concern as it can considerably affect the final stellar mass and radius, and thus, the resulting explosion properties, SN radiation, and detectability (Scannapieco et al. 2005; Kasen et al. 2011).”
• The First Billion Years project: the impact of stellar radiation on the co-evolution of Populations II and III (2012, background): “…et al. 10 There is, however, the possibility of observing Pop III galaxies if they are gravitationally lensed (see e.g. Zackrisson et al. 2012). c© 2012 RAS, MNRAS 000, 000–000 2012; Pan et al. 2012), given their high luminosities and spectral signatures (e.g. Kasen et al. 2011; Frey et al. 2012).”
• Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics ( ): Convective Boundaries, Element Diffusion, and Massive Star Explosions (2017, background): “A single energetic burst from nuclear burning can disrupt the entire star without leaving a black hole remnant behind to produce a pair-instability supernova (Ober et al. 1983; Fryer et al. 2001; Scannapieco et al. 2005; Kasen et al. 2011; Chatzopoulos et al. 2013).”
• Pulsational Pair-instability Supernovae (2016, methodology): “The bolometric light curves that KEPLER calculates have been compared favorably with those from other more powerful radiation-transport codes running similar problems (e.g. Eastman et al. 1994; Scannapieco et al. 2005; Woosley et al. 2007; Kasen et al. 2011).”
• On the diversity of superluminous supernovae: ejected mass as the dominant factor (2015, background): “The 120 M model of Kasen et al. (2011) has τ rise = 72 d and τ dec = 99 d, defined in the same way as for our objects (in these PISN models, the decline time-scale is mainly set by 56Co decay, which has a time-scale of 111 d).”
• ANALYTICAL LIGHT CURVE MODELS OF SUPERLUMINOUS SUPERNOVAE: χ2-MINIMIZATION OF PARAMETER FITS (2013, background): “Kasen et al. (2011) explored PISN model spectra for SN 2007bi, however Dessart et al. (2013) noted that the model spectrum that Kasen et al. compared to the observed one at +51 d after explosion was for a much earlier phase (by ∼ 100 d).”
• Type-Ia Supernova Rates and the Progenitor Problem: A Review (2011, background): “…iron abundance, or the gas-to-stellar mass ratio in clusters may have been systematically overestimated; or the contribution of corecollapse SNe to cluster iron enrichment may be underestimated, e.g., if pair-instability SNe are major iron suppliers (e.g., Quimby et al. 2011; Kasen et al. 2011).”