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Title: Constraining the progenitor companion of the nearby Type Ia SN 2011fe with a nebular spectrum at +981 d

Journal Article · · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [4];  [5];  [1];  [1]
  1. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
  2. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  3. Univ. of Southampton (United Kingdom)
  4. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States); NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  5. Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

We present an optical nebular spectrum of the nearby Type Ia supernova 2011fe, obtained 981 d after explosion. SN 2011fe exhibits little evolution since the +593 d optical spectrum, but there are several curious aspects in this new extremely late-time regime. We suggest that the persistence of the ~5800 Å feature is due to Na I D, and that a new emission feature at ~7300 Å may be [Ca II]. Also, we discuss whether the new emission feature at ~6400 Å might be [Fe I] or the high-velocity hydrogen predicted by Mazzali et al. The nebular feature at 5200 Å exhibits a linear velocity evolution of ~350 km s-1 per 100 d from at least +220 to +980 d, but the line's shape also changes in this time, suggesting that line blending contributes to the evolution. At ~1000 d after explosion, flux from the SN has declined to a point where contribution from a luminous secondary could be detected. In this work, we make the first observational tests for a post-impact remnant star and constrain its temperature and luminosity to T ≳ 104K and L ≲ 104L⊙. Additionally, we do not see any evidence for narrow H α emission in our spectrum. We conclude that observations continue to strongly exclude many single-degenerate scenarios for SN 2011fe.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1512132
Journal Information:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 454, Issue 2; ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher:
Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 41 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (17)

A year-long plateau in the late-time near-infrared light curves of type Ia supernovae journal October 2019
Mass-accreting white dwarfs and type Ia supernovae journal May 2018
Narrow transient absorptions in late-time optical spectra of type Ia supernovae: evidence for large clumps of iron-rich ejecta? journal November 2018
Using late-time optical and near-infrared spectra to constrain Type Ia supernova explosion properties journal March 2018
Progenitor constraints on the Type Ia supernova SN 2014J from Hubble Space Telescope H β and [O  iii] observations journal January 2019
Whimper of a Bang: Documenting the Final Days of the Nearby Type Ia Supernova 2011fe journal May 2017
Late-time Flattening of Type Ia Supernova Light Curves: Constraints from SN 2014J in M82 journal January 2018
Observations of SN 2015F Suggest a Correlation between the Intrinsic Luminosity of Type Ia Supernovae and the Shape of Their Light Curves >900 Days after Explosion journal May 2018
Late-time Observations of ASASSN-14lp Strengthen the Case for a Correlation between the Peak Luminosity of Type Ia Supernovae and the Shape of Their Late-time Light Curves journal October 2018
Late-time Observations of the Type Ia Supernova SN 2014J with the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 journal December 2018
Delayed Circumstellar Interaction for Type Ia SN 2015cp Revealed by an HST Ultraviolet Imaging Survey journal January 2019
Observations of Type Ia Supernova 2014J for Nearly 900 Days and Constraints on Its Progenitor System journal August 2019
Nebular Spectroscopy of Kepler ’s Brightest Supernova journal January 2019
Type Ia Supernova Explosions from Hybrid Carbon-Oxygen-Neon White Dwarf Progenitors text January 2016
Late-time Flattening of Type Ia Supernova Light Curves: Constraints From SN 2014J in M82 text January 2017
Mass-accreting white dwarfs and type Ia supernovae text January 2018
Using late-time optical and near-infrared spectra to constrain Type Ia supernova explosion properties text January 2018

Figures / Tables (10)

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