Spectral models for early time SN 2011fe observations

Journal Article · Tue Oct 13 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv1951· OSTI ID:1407294

Baron, E. ^[1]; Hoeflich, P. ^[2]; Friesen, Brian ^[3]; Sullivan, M. ^[4]; Hsiao, E. ^[5]; Ellis, R. S. ^[6]; Gal-Yam, A. ^[7]; Howell, D. A. ^[8]; Nugent, P. E. ^[9]; Dominguez, I. ^[10]; Krisciunas, K. ^[11]; Phillips, M. M. ^[5]; Suntzeff, N. ^[11]; Wang, L. ^[11]; Thomas, R. C. ^[10]

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1. Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States). Homer L. Dodge Dept. of Physics and Astronomy; Hamburger Sternwarte, Hamburg (Germany)
2. Florida State Univ., Tallahassee, FL (United States). Dept. of Physics
3. Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States). Homer L. Dodge Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
4. Univ. of Southampton (United Kingdom). School of Physics and Astronomy
5. Las Campanas Observatory, La Serena (Chile)
6. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Cahill Center for Astrophysics
7. Weizmann Inst. of Science, Rehovot (Israel). Benoziyo Center for Astrophysics
8. Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, Goleta, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics
9. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Computational Cosmology Center
10. Univ. of Granada (Spain)
11. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Inst. for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy

We use observed UV through near-IR spectra to examine whether SN 2011fe can be understood in the framework of Branch-normal Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) and to examine its individual peculiarities. As a benchmark, we use a delayed-detonationmodel with a progenitormetallicity of Z_⊙/20. We study the sensitivity of features to variations in progenitor metallicity, the outer density profile, and the distribution of radioactive nickel. The effect of metallicity variations in the progenitor have a relatively small effect on the synthetic spectra. We also find that the abundance stratification of SN 2011fe resembles closely that of a delayed-detonation model with a transition density that has been fit to other Branch-normal SNe Ia. At early times, the model photosphere is formed in material with velocities that are too high, indicating that the photosphere recedes too slowly or that SN 2011fe has a lower specific energy in the outer ≈0.1 M_⊙ than does the model. We discuss several explanations for the discrepancies. Lastly, we examine variations in both the spectral energy distribution and in the colours due to variations in the progenitor metallicity, which suggests that colours are only weak indicators for the progenitor metallicity, in the particular explosion model that we have studied. Here we do find that the flux in the U band is significantly higher at maximum light in the solar metallicity model than in the lower metallicity model and the lower metallicity model much better matches the observed spectrum.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); National Science Foundation (NSF); German Research Foundation (DFG); Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231; NAS5-26555; AST-0703902
• OSTI ID: 1407294
• Journal Information: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 454, Issue 3; ISSN 0035-8711
• Publisher: Royal Astronomical Society
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
radiative transfer
supernovae general
supernovae individual
SN 2011fe